Devas files petition in US against Nirmala Sitharaman

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, August 14

An American of Indian origin has filed a petition in the US State Department under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act urging economic and visa sanctions against 11 Indians, including Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, for corruption and serious violations of human rights.

The petition is part of the ongoing battle between the Indian Government and Devas, a company founded by petitioner Ramachandran Viswanathan, on enforcing a $1 billion arbitration judgment. While Sitharaman has blamed the Congress government for the fiasco and said the government would contest the adverse international arbitration awards on the basis of a Supreme Court judgment that upheld orders by the National Company Law Tribunal asking the promoters to wind up the company as the deal with Antrix was steeped in fraud.

After the UPA government cancelled a deal between Devas and an ISRO company, Antrix, three cases for international arbitration were filed by the aggrieved investors. India lost all of them but it is Devas founder Viswanathan who has taken up the cudgels against New Delhi, which includes laying claim on Air India’s assets in Canada and on Indian Government-owned property in France.

The Magnitsky petition is yet another attempt to bring the Indian Government to the negotiating table as was the case with Cairns Energy where New Delhi will be returning nearly Rs 8,000 crore.

Besides Sitharaman, the petition has also been filed against Antrix CEO Rakesh Sasibhushan, two Supreme Court judges and Ashish Pareek (CBI), Sanjay Kumar Mishra and other Enforcement Directorate officials.

Ongoing battle

• Plea part of ongoing battle between Indian Government and a company, Devas
• Firm founded by petitioner Ramachandran Viswanathan
• The fight is over enforcing a $1 billion arbitration judgment