The BJP on Thursday alleged that senior Congress leader and former Union minister Kapil Sibal had purchased a company from a person who was allegedly a money-launderer, and that the CBI during the UPA regime was investigating that person on charges of bribing an SBI officer for loan disbursal. Rejecting the allegations, Sibal said that he had purchased the company legally with his own earnings, and asked the government to focus on real issues instead of raising “non-issues”. Addressing mediapersons at BJP headquarters, Union Minister Smriti Irani said that PTI and Business Today in November 2013 carried reports according to which the CBI was probing an SBI officer on charges of bribery for loan disbursal. The suspected person named in the reports was Worlds Window Group chairperson Piyoosh Goyal, she said. A news website and a non-profit organisation involved in investigative journalism in South Africa also carried reports mentioning that the said person was involved in a case of money-laundering, Irani continued. Later, OpIndia, a news site in India, carried a story on the same subject, she said. “The person against whom the CBI was conducting inquiry in the UPA government and against whom the journalist in South Africa in an article made allegations of money-laundering, Kapil Sibal and his wife obtained the ownership rights of a company called Grand Castello from him,” she said. “Grand Castello with no business in financial year 2013-14 purchases a piece of land which eventually costs Rs 45.21 crore,” Irani quoted an OpIndia report. Once that land gets registered in 2014-15, it is revalued as per market value. “Article quotes from the auditor report. Now the value of that land becomes Rs 89 crore from Rs 43.79 crore,” she quoted. She added that in financial year 2015-16, according to that article, the company changes its accounting policy and switches it from market value to historical cost method. “And the next year Sibal and his wife obtain ownership rights in this company,” she said. Irani said that the South Africa journalist’s article stated that when Sibal was asked to explain his directorship of Worlds Window subsidiary Grand Castello, Sibal told the website that he had never been director of any subsidary of any company. The minister said that while people might say that Sibal has the right to buy from and engage with an alleged money-launderer, she would like to ask “whether this is politically acceptable to Shri Rahul Gandhi”. Speaking to mediapersons later, Sibal said that he had paid for the company from his earnings and with tax-paid money. He said his income tax returns were up to date, as were the returns of the company. “Why did they did not check these facts? But did a press conference and did not ask what wrong I have done, but asked what Rahul ji has to say? If you have any complaint, then question the person against whom the inquiry is being done.” Targeting the BJP government on the CBSE paper leak issue, Sibal said it was sad that a Union minister was raising non-issues. “It seems that this BJP worker and Union minister is not concerned about that. Students will have to reappear in the exam. Date of elections gets leaked from the Election Commission, exam paper gets leaked, data of Aadhaar also get leaked. But when it is for security of own ‘degree’, it is not leaked,” Sibal said. He said he was surprised that the minister did not ask the Prime Minister how ‘Mehul bhai’ knows him when he (Mehul Choksi) is also a money-launderer. “The question had to be asked first to the PM why he has connection with a money -launderer,” Sibal said.
