BJP demands high level probe Delhi Power Secy.’s wife’s accounts in British Virgin Islands

• Congress’ murky designs get exposed with Power Secy.’s wife’s account stashed with unaccounted money
• BJP demands high level probe Delhi Power Secy.’s wife’s accounts in British Virgin Islands
• Remove Power Secy. immediately, make call detail records public.

The Delhi BJP today demanded a high level probe into the matter of unaccounted money stashed in foreign tax havens like the British Virgin Islands by the wife of Delhi’s Power Secretary. The BJP also demanded that the Delhi Government should meet the Election Commission and seek immediate removal of the Power Secretary as exceptional circumstances have arisen after the expose on the stashing away of huge amounts of unaccounted money.

This is a clear indication that power sector is being manipulated by vested interests and huge money is being made through widespread corruption. This cannot be possible without support of the political executive in power. This also proves the charges made by the BJP that massive frauds are being committed in power sector resulting in unjustified hike of 300% in power tariffs over the last 15 years.

In a statement issued today, the Delhi BJP said, “This is an exceptional situation where it has come the light that the spouse of Power Secretary of Delhi despite being homemaker she has reportedly huge amount of unaccounted money deposited in the tax havens abroad. It cannot be a mere coincidence that a massive power scam is going on under the current Power Secretary in collusion with the Delhi government and the power discoms.”

“The party waited for 24 hours after the reports of unaccounted money came in public as we expected the government to act but since it has not, we demand action. The government should order a probe into account of Power Secretary’s wife in the British Virgin Islands. We want to know how can a homemaker has so much money that she has an account in a tax haven and how much money is there?” the Delhi BJP said.

“We demand that the call detail records of Power Secretary should be immediately made public. That would help in exposing the nexus between Power Secretary and the Congress leaders.”

Interestingly, the Delhi government had called the Power Secretary back from Goa to Delhi in August this year after he had been transferred to Goa earlier from Delhi. The Chief Minister owes an explanation to the people of Delhi about why she brought back an officer, who had presided over multi-crore scams in the Delhi transport department as the Transport Secretary and several projects related to the Commonwealth Games. It may be recalled that the CAG and the Shunglu Committee have indicted the Delhi Chief Minister and her government for effecting a scam of Rs. 70,000 crore in conducting the Delhi Commonwealth Games.

Now, in the backdrop of expose by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) about the unaccounted money having been stashed away by the wife of the Delhi Power Secretary, there are several doubts about the Chief Minister’s hand in entire murky business.

Delhi power Secretary Mr. R K Verma’s wife Mrs. Ritu Verma has been shown as a depositor of unaccounted money in the banks in the British Virgin Islands. Mrs. Verma has been shown as a shareholder in Windsor Incorporation Inc., which was started in July 2007 with an authorized share capital of $ 50,000.

Mrs. Ritu Verma is a housewife. It seems improbable for her to earn such huge amount of money to own big shares in a $50,000 company. There is a possibility that the unaccounted money might have been channelled by her Power Secretary husband, who has presided over several scams from Transport to Power Department and who has been close to the Delhi Chief Minister.

Mrs. Ritu Veram gave the official residential address of her husband when Windsor was being incorporated.  Her bank account in the British Virgin Islands carries the same address. The address is: D-II-225 Vinay Marg, Chanakyapuri in New Delhi. The company's British Virgin Islands address is shown as: Portcullis Trust Net Chambers, PO Box 3444, Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands.

The Windsor Group Holdings Ltd. was registered in the BVI on May 12, 2009 by a Delhi-based lawyer, who was also on the board of Chandigarh-based firm, Aero matrix, which Italian investigators found to have been one of the channels through which kickbacks were distributed in the Indian Air Forces’ VVIP helicopter deal (Augusta Westland).