He is also a bad judge of people, and this is best reflected in his choice of advisers. This is at best hearsay. But, in a democracy it is incumbent that the competition be not only within the limits prescribed by law but, more importantly, also within the limits of decency. Probably the closest to him among them is the Chennai-based chartered accountant and corporate lobbyist, Mr S. He is also frequently a mediator in intra-corporate and inter-corporate disputes. The total kickback amount implied in the Bofors deal — the biggest corruption case of the 1980s — was, by today’s standards, a tiddly-widdly `64 crore.J.5 billion Swiss francs in his name in an unnamed Swiss bank, and attributed this to a story that appeared in the November 11, 1991 issue of a lurid pictorial magazine, Schweizer Illustrierte. One case readily comes to mind.Now, Mr L. When Sonia Gandhi wrote to him, he saw an apology as the honourable way out. Mizin and his junior, Alexander Portyrailo, posted in New Delhi as diplomats, for activities incompatible with their diplomatic status. But Mr Gurumurthy is one of those to whom the end justifies any means. The integrity of such a citation cannot mean much.. The task force presumably comprised of the authors listed, namely, S. This penchant has often got him into trouble, but his place in Mr Advani’s innermost circle has, almost always, remained unchanged.Politics is a competition for power.V.However, the report reflected little of the authors’ expertise and acumen, or maybe it did. Gurumurthy, Ajit Doval, Professor R. Mr Doval was a former director of the Intelligence Bureau, Mr Vaidyanathan is a professor of finance at IIM-Bangalore, and Mr Jethmalani is a prominent lawyer. Facts do not suggest such a cozy relationship between the KGB and Indira Gandhi.Apart from this, Mr Gurmurthy et al concluded that all transactions covered in the IMF report “Cross-Border Investment in Small International Financial Centres”, which estimates such transactions to total $19 trillion, is black money.K. Advani is a decent and honourable man. The source cited here is the so-called Mitrokhin Archives, authored by a walk-in defector from the KGB to Britain’s SIS. Like wild allegations against the Gandhis in a BJP report which made the “iron man” apologise. A Swiss bank account is shorthand for having illegally earned money, which is then stashed away in Switzerland’s banks as that country’s laws empower the banks to protect the identities of their clients. Several nations invest their reserves through banks located in these tax havens, and several corporations also do this.On February 8, 2011, the BJP released a rather grandiloquently but grammatically inelegant document titled “Indian Black Money Abroad in Secret Banks and Tax Havens: Second Report of the Task Force on the steps to be taken by India”. China Panel Sawing Machine The report listed out countrywise transactions through these havens, but nowhere did the study refer to this money as black money or criminally obtained money. It was full of wild conjecture and inaccurate, unsubstantiated allegations and innuendo. In the late 1980s, when his friend and mentor, the late Ramnath Goenka was charged with illegally paying for machinery imported by the Indian Express group through Swiss banks, Mr Gurumurthy crafted an ingenious defence. Advani.Now we know that every second lawyer in Switzerland also serves as a fiduciary (trustee) for an overseas client, who may not be able to directly operate his/her account. It is just an allegation with no substantiation, which Mr Gurumurthy and certainly Mr Mahesh Jethmalani would have demanded had a similar accusation been made about a BJP leader. Even today, when India has over 50 dollar billionaires, many of whom are Mr Gurumurthy’s friends, if not clients, `10,000 crore is still a lot of money. The Mitrokhin Archives also suggest that Rahul Gandhi, too, had money paid into his bank account in the mid-1970s — a laughable allegation as it would imply that Mr Rahul Gandhi was a recipient of KGB payoffs when he was about 12 years old! The Mitrokhin Archives are a favourite reference book of that inveterate muckraker, Subramanian Swamy, and is even now often cited by him, long after Mitrokhin was discovered to be a MI6 fraud. Worse, it was badly written and reflected badly on the writing skills of the distinguished four. Gurumurthy — an RSS activist and no-holds-barred antagonist of the Congress. Even if Rajiv Gandhi got all of it — even Mr Gurumurthy would not say this was the case, since his friends, the Hinduja brothers of London, too, got some of the Bofors commissions — there would have had to be a huge number of similar deals.K. Advani’s one time adviser, S. Gurumurthy, the end justifies any means, even unethical. Quite clearly, some people consider him eminent. The BJP report wrongly took this amount to be all black money, and cited a study done by a E.The BJP report alleged that Rajiv Gandhi had over 2. There are several such havens where such monies can be stashed away. These means are often ethically and even legally unsound
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