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HT Interview | FIR against my husband patently illegal, says Majithia’s wife Ganieve Kaur
Shiromani Akali Dal’s Majitha MLA Ganieve Kaur Majithia countered the vigilance bureau charges and accused the Bhagwant Mann-led Aam Aadmi Party government of targeting the former minister with an “illegal FIR”
Hitherto seen as a reluctant politician, Shiromani Akali Dal’s Majitha MLA Ganieve Kaur Majithia, 49, has stepped out of the shadows to defend her husband Bikram Singh Majithia, who is in judicial custody now in an alleged ₹540-crore disproportionate assets case. In an interaction with Hindustan Times, she countered the vigilance bureau charges and accused the Bhagwant Mann-led Aam Aadmi Party government of targeting the former minister with an “illegal FIR”. Edited excerpts:
The Punjab Vigilance Bureau says you own 1,000 acres in Shimla and it was not declared in your election affidavit?
That is totally false. I demand the Vigilance Bureau show the public where I own the 1,000 acres (4.05sq km) in Shimla. Why not show us the site through the satellite map? Every inch of the property owned by me in Mashobra has been reflected in the election affidavit. The property has been bought through my known sources of income. Forget Mashobra, please show the 1,000 acres in the name of Ganieve Kaur Majithia. Can anybody own 1,000 acres (the size of 750 football fields) in Himachal? We won’t allow the Vigilance Bureau to get away with this. We are proceeding against them legally.
The VB also claims that you own 25% shares in a land development colony in Green Avenue of Jalandhar.
Leave aside 25% share in a company, the VB can’t even prove that Ganieve owns 4 gaj (square yards) in Jalandhar. I’ve visited Jalandhar only once in my lifetime and that too for an hour. I challenge the Punjab government to show the 1,000 acres I own anywhere in India and I won’t apply for Bikram Singh Majithia’s bail.
The VB claims your family received foreign money through shell companies. What is your take?
We have three things to say on this charge. First, the company in which transfer or receipt of money has happened does not belong to Majithia. Second, all these allegations have been raised by the VB in the Supreme Court during the hearing of the 2021 drugs case and have been trashed by the court. Third, the fact is that some money came after a 2005 contract between Saraya Industries Limited and a foreign firm, Clear Water Company, when Bikram Majithia was not in power. This money has come by way of foreign direct investment approved by the Reserve Bank of India. And the company, which they are saying was dubious, had just one office in Cyprus but owns offices throughout the world. In one year, that company invested ₹50,000 crore in Asia and the reality is that it lost sentiment in the Indian market because of red-tapism and left the business. When they decided to exit India and the assessment was made by an independent audit company of its share value, they took their money and left according to the contract between two people.
Your argument is that this FIR could not have been registered? Why?
The Supreme Court says you cannot register two first information reports (FIRs) for the same transaction of offences. When the Punjab special investigation team (SIT) was investigating the 2021 drugs case against Bikram Majithia, it filed three affidavits in the apex court claiming it had found huge financial transactions (which is a part of the current FIR) and to investigate that, we need his custody. It was after the Punjab and Haryana high court granted him bail in 2022.
However, the Supreme Court did not agree and rejected their petition. Now, on the same material (cited in the Supreme Court) with the same set of witnesses, they have registered a fresh FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act, which is patently illegal.
Legally, what they could have done was to invoke the PC Act in the 2021 drugs case. But they just had to harass and arrest him, which is why this FIR has been filed.
The VB claims huge cash deposits by the company linked to your family and undue influence by Majithia to benefit it when he was Punjab minister.
I repeat, the same allegations were levelled in the drugs case before the Supreme Court, but the VB failed to get his custody.
Now, let me explain the cash deposits. Did Majithia deposit it? No. It was deposited by Saraya Industries Limited, run by his father (Satyajit Singh Majithia). The company was established in 1947 and is in the liquor and distillery business. Alcohol is sold in cash, that is why cash deposits are made and have been made in this company’s case as well. The sale and deposits have to be correlated and excise duty has to be paid. Every paisa is accounted for here. This business remains under strict watch of the excise department. The liquor trade is a year to year business. Whenever the company gets vends, its revenue goes up but it’s under the excise department scrutiny.
The company has no presence in Punjab. So, the question of him misusing his office for undue benefits does not arise. He left the company in 2007 and since then there has not been a single transaction till date between him and the company. For the record, Bikram Majithia became minister in the SAD-BJP government in 2007.
You allege witch hunt by the Bhagwant Mann government. Why would it target Majithia only?
Because he’s the only leader who used to hit Punjab’s AAP government with facts. You check the social media accounts of the party in power and see what kind of malicious campaign they are running. He is being treated in a manner in which even dreaded criminals are not treated in a civilised society.
