Pandora Papers: Son of former Bengaluru police chief opened firm in Seychelles
According to the Incorporation Order/ Instruction Sheet of Seychelles-headquartered corporate services firm Aabol (All About Offshore Limited), the offshore entity’s name was Mesh Jyot Global Ltd.
An Express investigation into the Pandora Papers reveals how individuals and businesses are pushing the envelope to evade detection, using loopholes in the law at home and the lax jurisdiction of tax havens.
Three months before Jyothi Prakash Mirji was appointed Commissioner of Police in Bengaluru on May 2, 2011, his son Chiranthan Mirji set up an offshore entity in Seychelles. At that point of time, the Reserve Bank of India did not allow resident Indians to set up companies abroad or invest money sent abroad under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) to buy shares.
According to the Incorporation Order/ Instruction Sheet of Seychelles-headquartered corporate services firm Aabol (All About Offshore Limited), the offshore entity’s name was Mesh Jyot Global Ltd.
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“…the company will be involved in international trading of different merchandise and also be the intermediate agent for international buyers and sellers, wherein buyers and sellers will be parting the commission to our company for negotiating, structuring and executing the business proposals,” it stated.
Reached for comment, Chiranthan told The Indian Express: “This company was set up in 2011 just around the time I completed my graduation. The idea was to import furniture from China and sell here. But the company did not do any business. No bank accounts were opened or any amount deposited in this entity.”
The incorporation order of Mesh Jyot Global Limited, signed by Chiranthan Mirji on February 12, 2011, states that the company will be doing business in Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong. In it, Mirji also notes that he has not registered offices in these countries, and asks if it is mandatory to do so.
Chiranthan, who now runs a proprietorship firm called Chiru Trading in Bengaluru, said he will try to find the status of the offshore entity and then do what is required to shut it down. “Chiru Trading deals with surplus readymade clothing and its operations are restricted to Bengaluru,” he said.
P. Vaidyanathan Iyer is The Indian Express’s Managing Editor, and leads the newspaper’s reporting across the country. He writes on India’s political economy, and works closely with reporters exploring investigation in subjects where business and politics intersect.
He was earlier the Resident Editor in Mumbai driving Maharashtra’s political and government coverage. He joined the newspaper in April 2008 as its National Business Editor in Delhi, reporting and leading the economy and policy coverage.
He has won several accolades including the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award twice, the KC Kulish Award of Merit, and the Prem Bhatia Award for Political Reporting and Analysis. A member of the Pulitzer-winning International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), Vaidyanathan worked on several projects investigating offshore tax havens.
He co-authored Panama Papers: The Untold India Story of the Trailblazing Offshore Investigation, published by Penguin.
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