A day after the Supreme Court upheld an NCLT (national company law tribunal) order to wind up Devas Multimedia for fraudulently entering into a deal with the government-owned Antrix for use of satellites, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman launched a scathing attack on Congress-led UPA government for the “fraud conducted on the people of India.”
Sitharaman, quoting Supreme Court judgement, said the UPA indulged in wrong practices. "Antrix-Devas deal was against national security. It should be Congress party's turn to tell how this kind of fraud was perpetrated on people of India,” Sitharaman said.
The FM said that it was because of efforts of the NDA government that the case was pursued to this stage. She added that she will study the judgement to decide the future course of action as liquidation proceedings have to be started.
Sitharaman accused the Manmohan Singh government of keeping the cabinet in the dark about the deal between Devas and Antrix, as the S-spectrum (normally used by the defence services) was given away at throwaway prices. “The UPA took six years to cancel the deal brought in 2005," she said.
“This kind of selling of primary endowments like wavelengths, satellites or spectrum band, giving it away to private parties and making money from private parties and making a deal out if it marks the feature of the Congress government,” Sitharaman said, as asked Rahul Gandhi what action his party had taken against those accused of it.
A Bengaluru based start-up Devas (Digitally Enhanced Video and Audio Services) formed an agreement with Antrix, a digital arm of ISRO, to build, launch and operate two satellites and lease out 90 per cent of satellite transponder capacity. It was to be used to bring out a sea change in the way digital and broadcast services in the country were handled.
Antrix approached NCLT saying fraud was committed after which the tribunal passed the order to wind up the company.
As the matter went to the apex court, it said in its judgement, “We do not know if the action of Antrix in seeking the winding up of Devas may send a wrong message to the community of investors, but allowing Devas and its shareholders to reap the benefits of their fraudulent action, may nevertheless send another wrong message, namely that by adopting fraudulent means and by bringing into India an investment of Rs 579 crore, the 133 investors can hope to get tens of thousands of crores of rupees, even after siphoning off Rs 488 crore.”
However, as the fraud was detected the deal was cancelled. But the foreign investors of Devas went to an international tribunal and got an order to recover $1.29 billion by seeking Indian assets abroad. They even got orders to freeze Indian properties in Paris and are seeking Air India funds in Canada.
Sitharaman said the government was fighting in every court to save taxpayers' money that would otherwise go towards paying for arbitration awards that Devas has won against the cancellation of the 2005 deal.
The FM said she will continue the remind the country of the fraud committed by the Congress government. She added that not a whiff of a scam has emerged in the last seven years of Modi government.
