Ad in Wall Street Journal says India unsafe for investment, seeks US sanction on FM, others
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New Delhi: An advertisement that appeared in the Wall Street Journal in the US has embarrassed the Indian government for its call on the US government to impose sanctions on key figures in Indian administration, including the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and two judges of the Supreme Court.
The Indian government termed the advertisement an assault on India's sovereignty.
The full-page ad titled 'Wanted Modi's Magnitsky 11' appeared in the WSJ when the Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was in the US attending World Bank-IMF meetings last week.
The advertisement featured 11 key figures with the Indian administration, describing them as the "officials who make India unsafe for investment."
The ad also urged the US administration to impose an "economic and visa sanction" on the officials under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. The Act empowers the US government to sanction foreign government officials, freeze their assets and ban their entry into the US for human rights violations.
Apart from Finance Minister Sitharaman, the officials who were featured in the ad were Supreme Court judges V. Ramasubramaian and Hemant Gupta, Assistant Director in Enforcement Directorate R. Rajesh, Chairman of Antrix Corp Ltd. (business arm of Indian Space Research Organization) Rakesh Sasibhushan, Special (Prevention of Corruption) Act Judge Chandra Shekhar, Additional Solicitor General N. Venkataraman, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, Deputy Superintendent of Police(CBI) Ashish Pareek, Deputy Director (Enforcement Directorate) A. Sadiq Mohammed Naijnar and Director(Enforcement Directorate) Sanjay Kumar Mishra.
The ad accused the officials of the Modi government of using the state-run institutions for their interest against political opponents and business rivals which in turn made the country an unconducive and dangerous place for investments.
"These Modi government officials have decimated the rule of law by weaponizing the institutions of the state to settle scores with political and business rivals, making India unsafe for investors," the Advertisement read.
"If you are an investor in India, you might be the next," the ad said.
"Under the Modi government, a decline in the rule of law has made India a dangerous place to invest," the ad alleged.
It is believed that the man behind the ad was an Indian-origin American named Ramachandran Viswanathan whom the Enforcement Directorate of India designated a Fugitive Economic Offender. India has been trying to get Viswanathan's extradition to India done through the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty in Criminal Matters between India and the US.
Vishwanathan is said to have placed the Ad with the help of his friends in the US-based think tank 'Frontiers of Freedom Foundation', to whose website the QR code at the bottom of the ad is directed.
The tweets by George Landrith, president of Frontiers of Freedom(FF), following the ad in WSJ, strengthened that his organisation had the backing for the ad.
Landrith's message claims that FF has exposed "#IndiasMagnitsky11 and #FinMinIndia @NirmalaSitharaman's actions that have decimated the rule of law and investment climate in India."
Vishwanathan, former the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of 'Devas Multimedia Private Limited' in Bengaluru, who was allegedly involved in financial irregularities in a deal between Devas and Antrix, the business arm of the Department of Space, in 2005.
Devas and Antrix had signed a contract to deliver multimedia content via satellite and terrestrial systems. Devas were to pay Antrix a reservation fee of $20 million per satellite and a lease fee of $9 million to 11.25 million a year. But a dispute between the two led to the Government of India cancelling the deal.
This resulted in a legal battle between Devas and Antrix. The Supreme Court in January this year ruled that Devas was involved in fraud in the deal with Antrix. Following this, Devas moved to a US court with the help of Frontiers of Freedom International and won an award of $1.2 billion. It is now trying to claim it from India.