A Delhi Court has refused to order defreezing of a UK bank account of a consultancy firm accused of receiving $20.07 million in kickbacks from a Russian company for securing a Rs 2,066-crore contract from NTPC, saying it cannot be done without the approval of India and Britain.
CBI had registered a case against the NTPC officials, Russian firm M/s FGUPVO Technopromexport (TPE) and others, including Delhi-based consultancy company M/s Ravina Associates Pvt Ltd and its head Ravina Khurana, who allegedly received the kickbacks in the contract.
The court rejected the plea of Khurana and her firm seeking an order to Natwest Bank London for defreezing their account.
The special CBI court said the account was frozen following an arrangement between the two countries and it cannot be defreezed without their approval.
“Parties here are the government of India and government of the UK. So, it is clear that the property seized is to remain there unless there is new agreement to the contrary. In other words, the account frozen at the request of the Indian court shall remain frozen in the UK till such time the governments of India and the UK arrive at some different settlements,” the judge said.
The court also noted that the money parked in the account would be confiscated, if, after trial, it was proved to be “ill-gotten”.
The court also imposed a cost of Rs 20,000 on Khurana for “having wasted its time in an attempt to bring back prima facie illegitimate money, which belonged to the tax payers and had found its way to the account”.
The account of Khurana and M/s Ravina Associates Pvt Ltd was frozen following an order of the court on April 19, 2006, as the CBI registered a criminal case on March 6 that year against unknown officials of the NTPC and M/s FGUPVO Technopromexport, Russia.
The Income Tax Department had demanded Rs 44.31 crore from Khurana and M/s Ravina Associates Pvt Ltd following huge money allegedly received by them in their account at Natwest Bank, London from M/s Technopromexport for providing consultancy.
According to the CBI, during 2002-2005, some unknown officials of the NTPC here obtained illegal gratification in award of super thermal power contract at Barh in Bihar.
The FIR in the case was registered on the information from Interpol, London, which alleged that £15 million was lying in the UK bank account and appeared to be illegal money meant for kickbacks.
The CBI alleged that NTPC had entered three contracts with TPE Russia and transferred $53,633,554 to it as advance money.
The TPE later transferred $10,37,36,221 and $10,37,2,441.07 to M/s Ravina Associates Pvt Ltd at Natwest Bank on May 5 and May 18, 2005, respectively, according to the CBI.
The CBI alleged that more than $20.07 million was paid by TPE Russia to M/s Ravina Associates Pvt Ltd as commission equalling a percentage of the contract.
According to the allegations, M/s Ravina Associates Pvt Ltd did not file any Income Tax returns since 2000-01 till the FIR in the matter was registered on March 6, 2006.
“The amount lying in the account of Ravina Khurana and M/s Ravina Associates Pvt Ltd is ill-gotten money. It was deposited by the way of kickbacks by TPE to reward various corrupt Indian officials who had helped it to secure the contracts. The amount has already been received by the applicants but she did not bother to reflect them in the IT returns,” the court said.
It added that in fact after registration of the FIR, she got “wise” and filed IT returns indicating the said amounts.
“In other words, she had no intention of disclosing those income prior to registration of the FIR. It was an attempt to whitewash the money which was deposited in her account. So obviously, it was by the way of kickbacks,” it said.
