rediff.com: ED files complaint against First Global's Sharma

Enforcement Directorate has filed another complaint against the owner of First Global Shanker Sharma and his wife for allegedly re-selling shares of Himachal Futuristic Communications Limited to foreign institutional investors without the consent of the Reserve Bank of India.

The ED filed the complaint in the designated court at Mumbai, which took cognizance, sources said.

The Enforcement Directorate's complaint alleged that Sharma sold 250,000 shares of Himachal Futuristic to Deutsche Bank without the consent of the Reserve Bank of India, the sources said.

However, the Deutsche Bank returned the shares alleging that they could not purchase the shares without informing the Reserve Bank of India or any other market regulatory body, sources said.

The shares returned by the foreign bank to Sharma's First Global were sold to other foreign institutional investors again through illegal means, the ED complaint alleged.

This is the second complaint filed against Sharma by the ED. The earlier one also related to sale of shares of the same company to FIIs without the consent of RBI.

The ED will soon be filing a third complaint against Sharma for flow of funds to Mauritius, Directorate sources said.

The shares were found to have been purchased at a price of Rs 1050 and sold at Rs 1060 to some FIIs while the actual price at the time of selling was ranging between Rs 2100 and Rs 2211.

The ED sources said Sharma had earlier been served a notice under Foreign Exchange Management Act, which was converted to Foreign Exchange Regulations Act after the Directorate was convinced that the offence had been committed under the latter Act.

ED suspects that Sharma might have asked the FIIs to deposit the rest of the money gained from the shares of HFCL to his accounts in Mauritius.

The Directorate has initiated filing of compliant against First Global and its owners even though a Letters Rogatory sent by the Directorate was rejected by a Mauritian court as the agency has to complete investigations into all FERA cases by May 31.

Enforcement Directorate wanted to know the information about the 24 companies mentioned by Income Tax authorities as they allege that these companies had violated the tax norms under the cover of Indo-Mauritian Double Taxation Avoidance Convention.

The sources said there were apprehensions that Sharma could have asked for depositing the remaining amount of money in his Mauritius bank account under the Convention.

First Global hit the headlines after the Tehelka expose on corruption in the defence deals as the company owned 14.5 per cent of shares in the website.



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