Cairn Energy and Air India have jointly asked a New York federal court to stay further proceedings in the British firm's US lawsuit targeting the airline for enforcement of a $1.2-billion arbitral award. The move follows the government enacting a law to scrap retrospective taxation in the country, which in effect will result in withdrawal of the Rs 10,247 crore tax demand on Cairn, according to court documents reviewed by PTI. The British company had won an international arbitration award against levy of such taxes and sought to take over Air India assets when the government refused to honour the award and pay it $1.2 billion-plus interest and penalty.
The ED has now seized the property, agency sources said.
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The Indian government has paid Cairn Energy Plc Rs 7,900 crore to refund taxes it had collected to enforce a retrospective tax demand, ending a seven-year-old dispute that had tarred the country's image as an investment destination. The company, which is now known as Capricorn Energy PLC, in a statement said it has received "net proceeds of $1.06 billion", of which nearly 70 per cent will be returned to the shareholders. The tax department had used a 2012 legislation, which gave it powers to go back 50 years and slap capital gains levies wherever ownership had changed hands overseas but business assets were in India, to seek Rs 10,247 crore in taxes from Cairn.
The Indian State does not believe in the rule of law. It does not even recognise the need to follow treaties that it itself signed. And so it is refusing to shell out to Cairn; and, as a consequence, has brought on the Paris humiliation, notes Mihir S Sharma.
Govt to introduce comprehensive law on black money
Cairn has already taken steps to have the arbitration award recognised in nine major jurisdictions such as the US, UK, France, the Netherlands, Singapore and Canada's Quebec province, where Indian sovereign assets have been identified. It hasn't said what it might go after but assets could include Air India's planes, vessels belonging to the Shipping Corporation of India and property owned by state banks.
In its order, the court observed that the action of the authorities was a violation of Article 21 of the Constitution under which no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.
The prosecution complaint, ED's equivalent to chargesheet, has urged the court for confiscating attached assets totalling to Rs 1.22 crore in the case, besides other punishment under Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
The move comes after United States President Donald Trump accused Islamabad of giving nothing to the US but "lies and deceit" and providing "safe haven" to terrorists.
ONGC on Monday said it was still in reckoning for the confiscated assets of Russian oil firm Yukos and added Moscow may give it a stake in Rosneft's Vankor oil and gas field if the deal falls.
Post-mortems of 16 more suspected hooch victims were conducted here in the last two days, raising their number to 87, but authorities on Wednesday kept the official death toll in tragedy pegged at 35.
If the fear of ED could drive the powerful people of today to be honest or at least be minimally corrupt, will it not be a great thing for our nation?, asks Sudhir Bisht.
The raids resulted in recovery of documents of some dummy firms linked to Mallya like Gold Reef Investments Ltd and McDowell Holdings Ltd.
PMO asked income-tax department to submit report on action taken against identified benami owners
A New York court has paused Cairn Energy's pursuit of US assets of Air India for the recovery of $1.2 billion arbitral award, so as to allow the British firm to reach a settlement with the Indian government on the long drawn dispute. The New York district court delayed the tax suit to November 18, according to court documents reviewed by PTI. This follows Cairn Energy and Air India jointly asking the court to stay further proceedings in view of the fresh government enacting a fresh law to scrap retrospective taxation in the country.
UK-based Cairn Energy PLC on Wednesday said it has agreed to drop litigations to seize Indian properties in countries ranging from France to the UK as it has accepted the Indian government's offer to settle tax dispute relating to the levy of taxes retrospectively. Meeting the requirements of new legislation that scraps levy of retrospective taxation, the company has given required undertakings indemnifying the Indian government against future claims as well as agreeing to drop any legal proceedings anywhere in the world. The government now has to accept this and issue Cairn a so-called Form-II, that will commit it to refund the tax collected to enforce the retrospective tax demand.
The allegation against Khan is that he had applied to purchase the agricultural land for farming but constructed a farmhouse for personal use instead.
The SIT on black money has widened its probe.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday reiterated that an international arbitration ruling on India's sovereign right to taxation sets the wrong precedent, but said the government is looking at how best it can sort out the issue arising out of New Delhi being ordered to return $1.2 billion plus interest and cost to UK's Cairn Energy Plc. The government, which participated in an international arbitration brought by the Scottish firm against being taxed retrospectively, has appealed against The Hague based tribunal's ruling asking the government to return the value of shares expropriated and liquidated, tax refunds withheld and dividend seized to recover a wrongly levied retroactive tax demand.
Penalties for undisclosed foreign income and assets extend up to 300%.
SBI-led consortium expects to make over Rs 13,000 crore from sale of assets
To check black money menace, the Cabinet on Tuesday approved a new bill that would give more powers to the tax department in tracking illicit wealth stashed abroad and provide for strict penal actions for such offence.
It was perhaps over-enthusiasm that prompted the Indian investigative agencies to take a private jet to Dominica to bring back fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi. Predictably, the eight-member team had to return empty-handed after almost a week-long wait. The agencies were banking too much on the "state-less" status of Mr Choksi, as Antigua, which had given him citizenship in 2017, wasn't willing to take him back. Thus, the calculation was that Mr Choksi would be whisked away from the Dominican courtroom to the waiting plane. The reason for the optimism was also because Antigua is friendly territory for India.
In its judgment delivered at a packed room, the court sentenced Bo to life in prison on the bribery charges, 15 years for embezzlement and seven years for abuse of power
UK-based Cairn Energy PLC on Tuesday said it will drop litigations to seize Indian properties in countries ranging from France to the US, within a couple of days of getting a USD 1 billion refund resulting from the scrapping of a retrospective tax law.
If the account in a foreign bank has income undisclosed to income tax authorities, or has funds from illegal sources, the account can be declared illegal, under the Fema.
FinMin's project will enable tax man to track electronic transactions like RTGS or NEFT.
He said there was no report of any untoward incident from anywhere in the state.
'Wherever in the world there is political instability, those countries are beset with severe crises today. But India is in a much better position than the rest of the world due to the decisions taken by my government in the national interest,' President Droupadi Murmu said in her address to both Houses of Parliament.
It has registered 2,000-plus money laundering cases and about 12,000 forex violation ones in the 14 years since it was established. Yet, its probes have resulted in no more than 13 convictions from nine cases of money laundering since 2005.
Nirmala Sitharaman said Nirav Modi may have been able to run away from the country, but the government is taking action against him, and claimed that it will "surely nab him".
Embattled liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya claimed on Sunday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement in a recent interview confirming the recovery of Rs 14,000 crore worth of his assets has fully vindicated him in his assertion of being a "poster boy" for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government.
Vallabhbhai Patel's great claim to fame originated from his steely leadership of a struggle against a repressive regime, a good three decades before the achievement of states unification, points out Shreekant Sambrani.
Neelabh Mishra had earlier been editor of Outlook Hindi and has done extensive work in areas of research and documentation including for the Right to Information movement.
The move follows poor results in detecting undisclosed foreign assets and delay in concluding pending matters under the Black Money Act, which came into effect in 2015. According to the official data, only 52 cases have been identified so far. Of these, nine are from Mumbai alone.
Mir Baki was not the commander who had led the invasion on Ayodhya, Mishra said leading the bench to ask him as to what he was trying to prove by referring to these historical books.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra visited Bijnor district where she met families of two persons killed in the violence. Internet services have been suspended in several areas till Monday, while prohibitory orders remained in force across the state.
The manifesto said that loans of poor farmers and farm labourers will be waived off and loans of SCs and BCs will also be waived off.
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalithaa could not "satisfactorily account" for immovable properties and pecuniary resources of the value of Rs 53.6 crore when she was the Chief Minister from 1991 to 1996, the Special Court that sentenced her to four years in jail has held.
