Telecom major Vodafone India today said accounting firm Ernst & Young has confirmed that Hoshnar Kapadia, son of chief justice of India S H Kapadia, has not worked on any Vodafone-related matters.
In a statement, the company said the due diligence report on the Vodafone-Hutchison deal, on which the Income Tax Department had lost its case in the Supreme Court, was produced by E&Y's London office, a year before Hoshnar joined its Mumbai office.
"In fact, during the transaction between January 2007 to May 2007, Mr Hoshnar Kapadia was not working either for E&Y UK or E&Y India. He was working at the relevant time with KPMG, a competitor of E&Y.
"This Due Diligence report was heavily relied upon by the Tax Authorities throughout the four years of litigation and was not relevant to Vodafone's legal arguments. Hence, the possibility of a conflict of interest arising is difficult to comprehend," the statement said.
The Vodafone statement comes in the context of a public interest litigation filed in the Supreme Court, urging for a review of the judgement in the Vodafone tax case since there was an alleged conflict of interest because Hoshnar had worked with E&Y, the firm which advised Vodafone Group in 2007 on the Hutchison Whampoa deal.
{{/usCountry}}The Vodafone statement comes in the context of a public interest litigation filed in the Supreme Court, urging for a review of the judgement in the Vodafone tax case since there was an alleged conflict of interest because Hoshnar had worked with E&Y, the firm which advised Vodafone Group in 2007 on the Hutchison Whampoa deal.
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