Last week, a day after he alleged that Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had declared himself a British national to the Registrar of Companies in UK, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy posted a tweet with a reference to a leader of the Nationalist Congress Party.
Swamy retweeted another tweet which named the leader as Sharad Pawar.
The link in the tweet led to the website of the Registrar of Companies in UK, to a page displaying the filings of a company called SGFX Financials Co UK Limited which was formed on December 13, 2011.
The incorporation document of the company listed three directors – Shahnaz Ashraf Bharde, Sarvesh Narendra Gade and Sharadchandra Govindrao Pawar, whose occupation was stated as Minister, Government of India.
While Gade and Bharde jointly held the initial 500 shares worth 1401.55 pounds each, Pawar held no shares and exited the company altogether in January 2012.
Strikingly, in the six months between January and June 2012, the company’s share capital rose from 700,775 pounds to an astonishing 70,077,500,000 or 70 billion pounds, which would amount to approximately Rs 7 lakh crore.
Six months later, on November 27, 2012, the company was dissolved after the Registrar of Companies served it notice – from the documents, it isn't clear on what grounds.
Complaint by Pawar
Two days after this short-lived, little known firm surfaced in the news, Economic Times reported that Pawar had filed a complaint with the Economics Offences Wing against Gade and Bharde for "falsely and fradulently" submitting his name as director without his knowledge.
Scroll.in sent an email to Pawar's office to get more details but did not get a reply.
Unknown directors
Who are Gade and Bharde, the two people Pawar accuses of fraud?
The company filings UK offer no clues to their identity, except their gender, dates of birth and occupation. While Gade is listed as a businessman born in 1985, Bharde is listed as a businesswoman born in 1975.
An online search threw up a slew of complaints against the firm, which ranged from calling it a "fake company" to alleging that it "deals in black money".
A search on the Registrar of Companies website showed that Gade and Bharde had also floated an Indian company with the same name – SGFX Financials Limited. The statutory filings of this company showed it was formed on April 29, 2011. According to the last annual returns filed by the company in 2012, it had issued 49,483,000 shares worth Rs 10 each, which means its share capital amounted to nearly Rs 50 crore.
An online thread said the company had described itself as a "forex trading broker" even though online foreign exchange trading was illegal.
The company documents yielded a few addresses in Navi Mumbai that Scroll.in tried to locate.
At the Navi Mumbai office address listed for SGFX Financials, security guards were alert about queries from the media. "The company you are talking about was here in 2010-'11,” one of them said. "Since then, other companies have been renting that office."
Scroll.in also visited the addresses listed for Bharde and the third director in the Indian company, Sanjay Agrawal – both in Navi Mumbai. Neither of them were to be found in those apartment buildings. The flats are now occupied by different tenants who know nothing about the previous inhabitants. The address for Gade in Panvel in Raigad could not be verified.
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Niraj Gunde of Mumbai in email to PM states in the same British Govt website a NCP leader has a company with 7 billion pounds Sterling! Wow!
— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) November 17, 2015Swamy retweeted another tweet which named the leader as Sharad Pawar.
.@Swamy39 Another bombshell? Pawar has declared his co. is worth 70 Billion GBP https://t.co/sBc9OTBN1r @jgopikrishnan70 @jagdishshetty
— ॐRameshॐ (@rameshnswamy) November 17, 2015The link in the tweet led to the website of the Registrar of Companies in UK, to a page displaying the filings of a company called SGFX Financials Co UK Limited which was formed on December 13, 2011.
The incorporation document of the company listed three directors – Shahnaz Ashraf Bharde, Sarvesh Narendra Gade and Sharadchandra Govindrao Pawar, whose occupation was stated as Minister, Government of India.
While Gade and Bharde jointly held the initial 500 shares worth 1401.55 pounds each, Pawar held no shares and exited the company altogether in January 2012.
Strikingly, in the six months between January and June 2012, the company’s share capital rose from 700,775 pounds to an astonishing 70,077,500,000 or 70 billion pounds, which would amount to approximately Rs 7 lakh crore.
Six months later, on November 27, 2012, the company was dissolved after the Registrar of Companies served it notice – from the documents, it isn't clear on what grounds.
Complaint by Pawar
Two days after this short-lived, little known firm surfaced in the news, Economic Times reported that Pawar had filed a complaint with the Economics Offences Wing against Gade and Bharde for "falsely and fradulently" submitting his name as director without his knowledge.
Scroll.in sent an email to Pawar's office to get more details but did not get a reply.
The Economic Times report quotes Pawar as saying: "I don't know these people and why they have used my name in such a fraudulent manner. They must be trying to use my name to fool or cheat other and hence to get to the bottom of the matter, I have filed a police complaint."
Unknown directors
Who are Gade and Bharde, the two people Pawar accuses of fraud?
The company filings UK offer no clues to their identity, except their gender, dates of birth and occupation. While Gade is listed as a businessman born in 1985, Bharde is listed as a businesswoman born in 1975.
An online search threw up a slew of complaints against the firm, which ranged from calling it a "fake company" to alleging that it "deals in black money".
A search on the Registrar of Companies website showed that Gade and Bharde had also floated an Indian company with the same name – SGFX Financials Limited. The statutory filings of this company showed it was formed on April 29, 2011. According to the last annual returns filed by the company in 2012, it had issued 49,483,000 shares worth Rs 10 each, which means its share capital amounted to nearly Rs 50 crore.
An online thread said the company had described itself as a "forex trading broker" even though online foreign exchange trading was illegal.
The company documents yielded a few addresses in Navi Mumbai that Scroll.in tried to locate.
At the Navi Mumbai office address listed for SGFX Financials, security guards were alert about queries from the media. "The company you are talking about was here in 2010-'11,” one of them said. "Since then, other companies have been renting that office."
Scroll.in also visited the addresses listed for Bharde and the third director in the Indian company, Sanjay Agrawal – both in Navi Mumbai. Neither of them were to be found in those apartment buildings. The flats are now occupied by different tenants who know nothing about the previous inhabitants. The address for Gade in Panvel in Raigad could not be verified.