Amar, wife booked for financial fraud; SP leader denies charge

Kanpur/New Delhi, Oct 16 (PTI) Senior Samajwadi Party
leader Amar Singh and his wife have been booked for alleged
financial fraud amounting to about Rs 500 crore, a charge he
dismissed as "conjecture".

An FIR was lodged Thursday at Babupurwa police station
in Kanpur, accusing Singh and his wife of amalgamating
companies allegedly owned or run by them for converting black
money into white, Additional Director General of Police (Law
and Order) Brij Lal told PTI in Lucknow.

The name of actor Amitabh Bachchan has also figured in
the 14-page complaint as director of one of the companies, the
ADG said.

The complaint alleged that between 2003 and 2008, Singh
and his wife had amalgamated their companies with other
holdings and had amassed nearly Rs 500 crore in the process,
DIG (Kanpur) Neera Rawat said. The complainant has been
identified as Shivakant Tripathi who runs a school in Kanpur
and is associated with several social organisations there.

"The FIR has been lodged under various sections of IPC,
Prevention of Corruption Act and Prevention of Money
Laundering Act," the ADG said.

Reacting to the development, Singh said the allegations
"are conjectures, which are never tangible.

"I have got nothing to hide. Everything is in public
domain and on the Internet. These are public limited
companies, which are audited by auditors. It is easy to bring
charges against Amitabh Bachchan and myself, as this garners
greater TRPs for television channels," he said.

The 53-year-old SP leader said Bachchan was implicated in
the Barabanki land case too, but was later absolved of all
charges.

The firms named in the FIR included Energy Development
Company Limited, EDCL Power Limited, Pankaja Art and Credit
Limited, Sarvottam Cap Ltd, EDCL Infrastructure Ltd and
Eastern India Company, all owned or run by Singh and his wife.

"The complainant alleged that small utilities were
amalgamated in these companies. For instance, he claimed that
25 companies were amalgamated in Sarvottam Cap Limited," ADG
Brij Lal said.

Maintaining that he has no personal enmity with either
Amar Singh or Bachchan, Tripathi alleged that the SP leader's
assets crossed Rs 500 crore during 2003 to 2008 when he was
the chairman of UP State Development Council.

He claimed that he gathered evidence running into 1500
pages against Singh from various sources including the SP
leader's Income Tax returns and papers declaring assets in
Calcutta and Allahabad High Courts.

Tripathi told PTI that he has no connection with any
political party.

Meanwhile, Congress party said the FIR filed against
Singh seemed like a case of "political vendetta".

"I am not aware of the details of the case but what I
have gathered is that it has been filed on a private complaint
... At the first look, it does look like a case of political
vendetta," Digvijay Singh, All India Congress Committee (AICC)
general secretary in-charge of northern state of Uttar
Pradesh, told reporters in New Delhi. PTI TEAM
ANU