NEW DELHI: His name may not figure in the list of top Indian industrialists, but that’s how
Anand Kumar,
Mayawati ’s brother operates: low profile, hardly photographed. His swift rise, however, may not just be a coincidence.
His fortunes grew exponentially between 2007 and 2014 — when his sister was chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. His net worth rose from nearly Rs 7.5 crore to Rs 1,316 crore.
Times Now
is in possession of income tax probe details which reveal a clear paper trail of round tripping through shell companies, taking mysterious multicrore loans and huge real estate investments.
The first clear case of alleged round tripping is that of
Aakriti Hotels
Pvt Ltd — a company in which
Anand Kumar is a major player through debenture shareholdings.
Aakriti Hotels is a Delhi-based company which, as per records with the
Registrar of Companies
, has three directors and close to 37 equity shareholders, but not all of them seem legitimate. Some of the firms listed as their shareholders are shell companies that exist only on paper.
Three different companies, Bhaskar Fund Management Ltd, Clifton Pearson Export and Agencies, Delton Exim Pvt Ltd, Ganga Builders Ltd have a combined equity investment of 5,00,150 shares in Aakriti hotels. Times Now found that all three companies operate out of the same building at Maheshtala, Kolkata, and even have the same set of directors.
On further probing, no such office was found at the location. The same pattern is visible in other shareholders of Aakriti Hotels, like
Novelty Traders Pvt Ltd
, Haribol market, Guwahati.
A visit showed no such office was operating in the locality. Novelty traders has 27,000 shares in Aakriti Hotels.
Times Now tracked down seven such companies spread across the country and discovered one common strain, all these firms exist only on paper, a common modus operandi for round tripping money.
Top government sources told Times Now that on the basis of these revelations, agencies will be probing these shell companies and “sweetheart deals”.
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