Oil-for-food: ED traces Rs 8-cr to Delhi bank
NEW DELHI, Mar. 26, 2006
(Times of India, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)
The Enforcement Directorate (ED), investigating
the money trail in the 'oil-for-food' scam, has
finally tracked a sum of Rs 8 crore transferred
from London-based NRI businessman Aditya Khanna's
bank account to his own NRI account in a Delhi bank.
The amount was later withdrawn from this account
to be allegedly distributed among Indian beneficiaries
of the scam.
Top ED sources identified the money as proceeds
from the oil-for-food transaction which was remitted
to India after paying commission to Masefield, the
Swiss firm which lifted oil from the quota which,
according to the Volcker report, had been allotted
to former external affairs minister Natwar Singh.
ED and Income-Tax department are jointly investigating
the bank accounts of Aditya Khanna and his brothers
-- Arvind Khanna, a Congress MLA from Sangrur in
Punjab, and Navin Khanna.
All three brothers have separate bank accounts
in the branch in question, on Parliament Street,
of Standard Chartered Bank...
...The Khannas are relatives of Natwar Singh and
represent a branch of the Phulkyan clan, which includes
Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh.
Sources said that apart from the Rs 8-crore oil
money transferred to Aditya Khanna's NRI account
in Delhi, officials have found details of huge remittances
made from London to accounts of Arvind and Navin
Khanna in the past few years.
When contacted, the Khannas denied their involvement
in the scam, which came into the open after Paul
Volcker, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve
who led a UN probe into Saddam Hussain's scam, submitted
his report.
The report triggered a political storm which resulted
in the ouster of Natwar Singh from the external
affairs ministry last year.
"We don't know of any oil money. No such money
was ever transferred into Aditya's account either
in India or abroad," said a family source...
...ED sources, however, maintained that Aditya
Khanna was one of the key protagonists who refused
to cooperate with the probe.
ED had to approach the ministry of external affairs
to cancel the NRI businessman's passport when he
refused to explain his transactions.
The ED has asked the Khannas to produce the Foreign
Inward Remittances Certificate (FIRC) against each
remittance into accounts in Standard Chartered Bank.
Natwar Singh, foreign minister's involvement in
Iraq oil sale scandal
NRI
from London questioned in the Iraq oil sale scandal.
