In 1972, Ms.Sonia Gandhi took employment as an insurance agent of Oriental Fire Insurance, a public sector firm. As a foreigner as she was then, she committed a criminal offence by taking such employment. Furthermore, she showed her business address as the official residence of the then Prime Minister and her mother-in-law, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, at 1, Safdarjung Road, New Delhi, which is an offence. Besides these, she collected commissions on insurance policy sold to Maruti and to individuals in the Prime Minister’s Office, which is also an offence. These facts came to light in a Rajya Sabha Question Hour in November 1974. The then Prime Minister Mrs.Indira Gandhi,and mother-in-law later announced in the House that Mrs.Sonia Gandhi had resigned her insurance agency, a clear admission of culpability under law. The three offences listed above are not subject to the statute of limitation, and thus the failure to prosecute Ms.Sonia Gandhi then, is no bar to launching prosecution now. B. On January 25, 1973, Ms.Sonia Gandhi was appointed the Managing Director of Maruti Technical Services Private Ltd.[MTSPL] in an “extraordinary” meeting of two share holders who together held all the shares, 20 shares each of Rs.10 per share. The two shareholders at the meeting were Ms.Sonia Gandhi and Mr.Sanjay Gandhi. The MTSPL was incorporated on November 16, 1970. On September 28, 1974, Ms.Sonia Gandhi was made the MD of the Maruti Heavy Vehicles Private Ltd.[MHVPL], which was incorporated on February 22, 1974 with 13 shareholders in which the Gandhi’s had controlling interest. The Maruti car company and the heavy vehicles firm entered into a consultancy contact for expert advice with MTSPL for which susstantial fees were paid. In 1978, the Commission of Inquiry headed by Supreme Court Judge Mr. A. C. Gupta, appointed by the Janata Party government, submitted its Report on the affairs of the Maruti companies. The Commission recorded the depositions of S.Kumar, Registrar of companies, and A. Banerjee, Income tax officer, Mr. Kumar held that “the allotment of shares of the MTSPL and MHVPL to Ms. Sonia Gandhi was in contravention of Section 28(1) of FERA 1973 which prohibited foreigners from owning shares in Indian companies, and hence was ab initio void in law. By Section 56, Ms.Sonia Gandhi thus committed a criminal offence that limitation on this offence even if FERA stands replaced by FEMA in 2000. Thus Ms.Sonia Gandhi can be prosecuted even today. Furthermore, the Gupta Commission recorded that Income Tax Officer, A. Banerjee had disallowed the remuneration paid by MTSPL to Ms.Sonia Gandhi “because she had no qualifications to be able to render any technical service to the company.” Considering that Ms. Sonia Gandhi holds an unrecognized “diploma” from a English Language teaching shop for unemployed European girls in the city of Cambridge, England, that is quite obvious. Hence a fraud was committed, for which Ms. Gandhi can be prosecuted under Income Tax law as well. C. The electoral rolls of the New Delhi Constituency were revised in 1980 with January of that year as the qualifying date. When the voter list was published, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, then an Italian citizen, illegally became a voter at serial number 388 of polling station number 145 of that constituency. Ms. Gandhi applied to become an Indian citizen only on April 7, 1983, and was granted citizenship with lightening speed on the same day. But during the three years till the beginning of 1983, Ms. Sonia Gandhi remained on the voter roll committing offences punishable under Section 31 of the Representation of Peoples Act 1950, of a maximum sentence of one year and fine. Ms. Sonia Gandhi cannot say that she was not willfully committing this grievous offence because to become a voter, one has to fill and sign Form 6 prepared under the Electors Rules 1960 in which affirmation of citizenship of India is essential. Hence Ms. Gandhi by this false affirmation also committed offences under the Indian Penal Code, particularly Sections 192 and 199, which carry a three year punishment. D. During the 1980s, Ms.Sonia Gandhi’s mother Mrs.Paola Maino, and sister Anushka Vinci had developed business connections with Snam Progetti’s resident in India, Mr.Ottavio Quattrocchi. The Influence wielded by Rajiv Gandhi’s Italian in-laws enabled Quattrocchi to corner government contracts such Thal Vaishet fertilizer project, as well as to broker deals such as the Bofors 155mm gun sale to the Indian Army. Affidavits filed in a Malaysian court and documents with the CBI establish that Sonia’s sister Anushka and her husband (now ex) Walter Vinci were beneficiaries from the receipts of Quattrocchi from Bofors company. Quattrocchi has also declared that he is a close friend of Ms.Sonia Gandhi, a claim not denied by her. Hence Ms.Sonia Gandhi, her sister and mother are candidates for inclusion in the Bofors bribery case FIR under Section 319 of the Cr.P.C., to be thus investigated and prosecuted. E. Revelations contained in the archives of the KGB became public, and some of which were published in Pravda and Izvestia in 1992 following the liquidation of the Soviet Union. Most of these Archives are now kept in a library at Harvard University, USA. One letter in the archives documents the regular payment of commission to Ms.Sonia Gandhi and the Maino family in Italy, arranged by the KGB. One letter [published in a Russian news daily Izvestia on June 27, 1992 in an article by Ms.Yevgenia Albats of Moscow News] was written by the then KGB chief, Viktor Chebrikov to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CPSU]. The KGB chief reporting these payments to the CPSU for ractification, stated that members of the Rajiv Gandhi family had expressed profound gratitude for the help being received by them through commercial deals of an organizations. In a confidential message to the KGB, stated Chebrikov to the CPSU, “they [the Mainos] informed that a major part of these resources was used to support the party of Mr.Rajiv Gandhi”. Only July 3, 1992 Ms.Tatiana Samolis, the spokesperson of the KGB’s successor organization, the Federal Intelligence service [FIS], in a press briefing in Moscow [which was reported in the Hindu 4.7.92] confirmed that indeed such a connection between the KGB and Mainos had existed “in view of the ideological confrontation that prevailed in the world at that time” In the 1989 elections for example the Mainos spent Rs.10 crores on select candidates of the Congress Party in the General Elections, obviously to create cheerleaders for Ms.Sonia Gandhi for a future contingency, Mr.Arjun Singh was one such recipient from the Mainos. Ms.Sonia Gandhi, her mother and sister are thus guilty of offences under IPC Sections 120B read with 171-C and 171-H, as well as FERA and FCRA.
Posted on: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 19:08:12 +0000
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