DRI Investigating Over Invoicing of Coal to
Send Money out of Country
Six Adani group -
Adani Enterprises Ltd, Adani
Power Ltd, Adani Power Rajasthan Ltd, Adani Power Maharashtra Ltd, Adani
Wilmar Ltd and Vyom Trade
Link. The Adani group is already in DRI net for over
value of power plants from Dubai. One of the Adani
brothers is named in Panama Account scam. The group has supplied coal to
various power generation and distribution companies, including Tamil Nadu
Electricity Board, Gujarat State Electricity Corporation, Haryana Power
Generation Corporation and Jhajjar Power Ltd.
Anil Ambani Reliance Infrastructure
Ltd and Rosa Power Supply Co Ltd; two companies in the Essar
group promoted by the Ruia family, Essar Oil Ltd and Essar Power
Gujarat Ltd; JSW Steel Ltd headed by Sajjan Jindal;
four companies in the Hyderabad-based NSL group (NSL Sugar, NSL Krishnaveni Sugar, NSL Sugar Tungabhadra and NSL Textiles)
promoted by M Venkataramaiah and M Prabhakar Rao; India Cements Ltd led by former
International Cricket Council chairman N Srinivasan; and Uttam
Galwa Steels Ltd led by Rajinder
Miglani are in the hit list.
The list also includes Gupta Coal India Ltd; MBG Commodities
Pvt Ltd; Knowledge Infrastructure Systems Pvt Ltd; three companies in the
Bhatia group, Bhatia Global Trading, Bhatia International (Asia Natural
Resource), Bhatia Industry and Infrastructure (Hemang
Resources); two companies in the Gandhar group, Gandhar Oil and Refinery India Ltd and Gandhar
Coal and Mines; Coastal Energy Ltd; Aggarwal Coal Ltd; Suryadev
Alloys and Power Pvt Ltd; Laxmi Organic Industries
Ltd; Phoenix Comtrade Pvt Ltd; and Simhapuri Energy Ltd.
Government-owned companies being investigated include the
country’s largest power producer NTPC Ltd (formerly National Thermal Power
Corporation Limited), MMTC Ltd (formerly Metals and Minerals Trading
Corporation Limited), MSTC Ltd (formerly Metal Scrap Trading Corporation
Limited) and Karnataka Power Corporation Limited.
On
27 February 2016, the DRI arrested Manoj Kumar Garg,
a Hong Kong based Indian national who had allegedly opened a front company in
Dubai responsible for over-valuing imported coal to the tune of Rs 280 crore. The coal was meant for the state electricity
boards in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
Garg is reportedly a mastermind in two other scams, one related
to the Bank of Baroda (BoB) and the other related to
allegedly illegal exports of basmati rice. In the first case, money was
allegedly remitted to Hong Kong in an unauthorised manner in August 2014,
purportedly for importing dry fruits, rice and pulses. In October 2015, after
an internal probe was conducted by the management of the BoB,
it was revealed that there were over 8,000 foreign exchange transactions from
new accounts in a specific branch of the bank in Ashok Vihar,
Delhi, to companies in Hong Kong. The transactions were apparently conducted by
splitting large transactions into smaller ones, each below $100,000, a
phenomenon known as “structuring” or “smurfing” in banking circles (Chauhan and
Shetty 2015).
The BoB forex scandal running into Rs 6,500 crore is currently being investigated by the
Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising Justices MB
Shah and Arijit Pasayat.
Over
25 big exporters of basmati rice from Haryana and Punjab are under the scanner
of the DRI and the ED. The rice would typically be taken to Gujarat’s Kandla Port, and shipping bills or documents detailing the
value and volume of goods to be exported, the names of the consignor and
consignee would be filed with the customs authorities. The consignments,
instead of reaching Iranian shores, would be diverted mid-sea to Dubai in
connivance with ship operators. Still, in official documents it would be shown
that payments had been made from Iran to India.
Garg
is a partner in two companies, Glints Global General Trading LLC, Dubai (GGGTL)
and Glints Global Limited, Hong Kong (GGL), which are trading companies. These
two companies had supplied coal to MBG Commodities Pvt Ltd, which, in turn had
supplied it to MSTC Ltd, a public sector undertaking, which finally supplied it
to power generators.
The remand application for Garg
says that a number of coal based power plants in India are overvaluing their
imports of Indonesian steam coal to charge higher tariff and to siphon off the
money abroad. In December 2014, the DRI had carried out series of
search-and-seizure raids across 80 locations in Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat,
Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Kerala and Odisha. The
raids were carried out on coal importing companies, shippers, intermediaries
and laboratories. (Courts are coming to the rescue of Garg,
The Delhi High Court allowed him four weeks to travel to Dubai even as CBI
opposed his travel on 26 Feb 2015)
According to the remand application, the modus operandi
adopted was to create layers of invoicing between Indonesia and India.
Intermediary firms, based in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai and other locations,
were deployed to inflate the prices of coal in official billing documents. The
declared prices in India were inflated to over US$ 82 per tonne which was
remitted out of India through banking channels. The investigations of
over-invoicing of coal imports took place between 2010 and 2015 and the prices
mentioned are approximate averages.
The DRI’s remand application says that while the original
coal price was remitted to the shipper in Indonesia by the intermediary, the
overvalued component was parked abroad. The intermediary invoicing to the
Indian entity is either related or a front company operating on a commission
basis. Steam coal, used by power plants typically attracts duty at the rate of
two per cent of the basic customs duty and a countervailing duty of another two
per cent. Preferential ASEAN duty is nil subject to Origin Certificate.
Electricity producers in India are mainly importing low
quality coal with a GAR (an acronym for “gross as received,” a technical phrase
to measure the calorific value of the coal) of between 3,800 and 4,200 for coal
imported from Indonesia.
The TNEB purchased coal through Glintz
Global, a partnership company based in Dubai with two partners Manoj Kumar Garg and a Dubai national (as is mandated by Dubai laws and
who acts as a sleeping partner who signs papers on payment of a commission). It
is alleged that these are several intermediary invoices issued in tax havens.