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By:

Rajendra Joshi

3 December 2024 at 9:20:26 am

The ‘sweet’ scam behind the sugar price surge

AI generated image Kolhapur: A sugar shortage can push up prices. But what happens when prices rise sharply despite the country having enough sugar in its warehouses? That is the uncomfortable question emerging from the sugar market’s July-August price surge. There was no evidence of an outright shortage when the new sugar season approached. Government estimates indicated that the country would have around 43 lakh metric tonnes of carry-forward stock. The Centre, relying on this broad...

The ‘sweet’ scam behind the sugar price surge

AI generated image Kolhapur: A sugar shortage can push up prices. But what happens when prices rise sharply despite the country having enough sugar in its warehouses? That is the uncomfortable question emerging from the sugar market’s July-August price surge. There was no evidence of an outright shortage when the new sugar season approached. Government estimates indicated that the country would have around 43 lakh metric tonnes of carry-forward stock. The Centre, relying on this broad availability, permitted exports of 20 lakh tonnes. And yet, the market behaved as though sugar had suddenly become scarce. At the beginning of July, tender prices were around Rs 3,800 a quintal. By the latter half of the month, prices began climbing rapidly. In the retail market, sugar prices that were around Rs 45 a kg reportedly touched Rs 78. The government responded with stock limits and permission for duty-free imports of 10 lakh tonnes. But these interventions address the symptoms. They do not answer the more fundamental question: what caused the price spike in the first place? The first clue could lie in the lifting quota. The quantity of sugar released into the market in July was lower than expected. By itself, a lower monthly quota need not create a crisis when overall stocks are comfortable. But markets are driven not only by physical availability; they are also driven by expectations. A smaller release can create the perception of scarcity. Once that perception takes hold, stock-holding can become more profitable. The initial spark need not be large if the market has enough speculative fuel. This is why the July episode deserves a forensic examination. The timing is particularly significant. July marked the transition from Ashadh to Shravan, when the festive calendar begins and sugar consumption traditionally strengthens. At such a time, the normal expectation would be that adequate stocks are released into the market to prevent abnormal price escalation. Instead, prices moved sharply upwards. Was this coincidence, a genuine mismatch between demand and supply, or something more? The GST system offers an unusually powerful investigative tool. Every registered transaction leaves a digital footprint. A sugar mill selling to a registered trader generates an invoice recording the quantity, value, date and buyer. The trader’s subsequent sale generates another transaction. GST returns and e-invoices can therefore help create a chain showing who purchased sugar, at what price, when it was invoiced and when it was subsequently sold. This information can be matched with physical stock registers, dispatch records and warehouse inventories. The key question should be simple: Did the sugar that was shown as sold actually enter the market? Suppose a trader purchased substantial quantities in July when prices were relatively low, but the commodity remained physically stored at or near the mill. If the stock was released only after prices rose substantially in August, investigators would have a legitimate reason to examine the transaction more closely. That alone would not prove hoarding or cartelisation. A commercial decision to hold inventory is not illegal merely because prices subsequently rise. Large purchases before a price surge. Delayed physical movement. Repeated transactions among related entities. Unusually high margins. Sudden releases when prices peak. These are precisely the patterns that a data-led investigation can identify.

India waits to lasso diamantaire Mehul Choksi

Mumbai: India rubbed its hands gleefully as the Belgium Police honoured its request to arrest the absconder diamantaire Mehul Chinubhai Choksi – more than seven years after he, along with his nephew Nirav Deepak Modi - allegedly duped the Punjab National Bank of nearly Rs. 13,800-crores.

 

The scam involving the ‘Mehul Mama-Nirav Bhanja’ erupted in Jan 2018, after the PNB lodged a complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

 

By then the kin, along with many of their family members, winked and slipped out of the country, leaving a rattled India rubbing its palms in disappointment.

 

A political-cum-financial storm raged, embarrassing the Bharatiya Janata Party government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi a year before the Lok Sabha elections.

 

Multiple agencies launched a multi-pronged probe into what became the biggest banking scam in the past quarter century – and almost four times bigger than the stock market-cum-banking fraud the late Big Bull Harshad Mehta had inflicted on the Indian economy 33 years ago (in April 1992) – when it was just opening up.

 

In Belgium

According to official reports, Choksi was living with his Belgium citizen-wife Preeti in Antwerp, a global diamond hub, presumably for the past 18 months on a ‘residency permit’ acquired through questionable means, for medical reasons.

 

Earlier, he shot to the headers (June 2021) while being taken in a wheelchair to a court by the Dominican Republic's Police on charges of sneaking into the small country in the Caribbean Sea, North America.

 

Interestingly, as the Antigua & Barbuda government initiated the process to cancel his citizenship acquired through an investor visa, Choksi had suddenly gone ‘missing’ till he surfaced in the Dominican Republic.

 

The April 2025 action by Belgium followed a request by India’s CBI and the financial frauds specialist Enforcement Directorate (ED) to nab Choksi as the InterPol had revoked his Red Corner Notice in 2023.

 

Mama and Bhanja

‘Mama’ Choksi is the founder-owner of Gitanjali Group while ‘bhanja’ Nirav’s Firestar plus other companies – and the duo, with some PNB officials hand-in-glove – conspired to make a ‘mamu’ of not only PNB, but other banks, as it subsequently tumbled out.

 

After making a quiet exit, Choksi was detected living in the verdant Antigua & Barbuda Isles (West Indies), then attempted entry to the Dominican Republic, was sent back to Antigua & Barbuda and then went to Belgium where he was nabbed on Sunday.

 

Similarly, Modi was found sauntering on the streets of London and nabbed in March 2019. He remains in jail there since India's extradition is still pending.

 

However, India is keeping its fingers crossed that it may finally lay hands on Choksi, bring him to India and face trial in the PNB scam, though it may take time.

 

Born in Mumbai (1959) and educated in Gujarat, Choksi, 66, and wife Preeti have three children.

 

The Rs. 13,800-crore PNB scam

In the modus operandi revealed after India’s second-largest PSU bank PNB admitted it was scammed, Choksi and Modi used fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoU) to get overseas credits or loans from Indian banks.

 

The PNB first informed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) of the fraud and then lodged a criminal complaint with the CBI in Jan. 2018, plus another CBI complaint in Feb, that led to a FIR against Modi and Choksi and their companies.

 

The ED entered the scene to probe the allegations of money-laundering through the LoUs – which they allegedly misused to avail short-term business finances from foreign branches of Indian banks.

 

The probe said that the duo were availing the LoUs from the PNB’s Brady House Branch from March 2011, and over the next six-seven years, managed to get a whopping 1,200-plus LoUs like a breeze with the help of some friendly bankers within.

 

Post-scam, the gold-diamond companies Gitanjali Group and Firestone Group with multiple operations in India and abroad have largely wound up, while some personal assets of the mama-bhanja have been auctioned to recover a part of the dues.

 

ED's plea to declare Choksi fugitive stuck for seven years

Even as absconding diamantaire Mehul Choksi, a key accused in the Punjab National Bank loan fraud case, has been arrested in Belgium, the ED's plea to declare him a fugitive economic offender has been pending before a court in Mumbai for nearly seven years.


Choksi, 65, and his nephew diamantaire Nirav Modi are the prime accused in the Rs 13,000 crore PNB bank loan fraud case. Choksi was arrested in Belgium following an extradition request by Indian probe agencies, official sources said on Monday.


The Enforcement Directorate had filed the application in July 2018, seeking to declare Choksi an FEO and confiscate his assets under provisions of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act.


However, the matter has witnessed repeated delays owing to a barrage of applications filed by the accused in the PMLA court and the Bombay High Court alleging procedural lapses in the Enforcement Directorate's plea.


"The court is kept busy with frivolous applications, and hearing on our application to declare him (Choksi) an FEO has been adjourned for the past seven years,” an ED officer had said after the hearing was once again deferred this February.


"The court should have continued the hearing and taken a decision on the future course of action once the application was moved," the officer had said.

He had urged the court to take note of the repeated filing of similar applications and to not entertain them.


Choksi's lawyer had informed the court that the accused was undergoing treatment for suspected cancer in Belgium and intended to file an application in connection with his health.


Under the FEO Act, an individual can be declared a Fugitive Economic Offender if a warrant has been issued against him for an offence involving Rs 100 crore or more and he has left India while refusing to return. Once declared an FEO, the person's property can be confiscated by the investigating agency.


Choksi had challenged the ED's application in the Bombay High Court, alleging that the agency "had not followed proper procedure before filing the application and, hence, it stands vitiated".


However, in September 2023, the High Court dismissed his plea, ruling that the ED had adhered to the prescribed format under the FEO Act. It also vacated a stay on the special court's proceedings.


Despite this, the hearing on declaring Choksi FEO could not commence, with Choksi continuing to file applications before the special court through his lawyers.


While most of these pleas have been dismissed, a few remain pending. His latest attempt to stall proceedings through a plea to recall the notice issued on the ED's FEO application was rejected in December 2023.


According to ED officials, Choksi left India under suspicious circumstances in early January 2018.


Shifting stance

Choksi's counsel has argued that the ED kept shifting its stance on the material grounds for declaring him an FEO and that the suspension of his Indian passport made it impossible for him to return for investigation.

The court, however, rejected this argument, stating that the notice was issued based on accurate information and not based on "wrong facts or mistaken assumptions".


ED claimed the accused left the country under suspicious circumstances in the first week of January 2018.


Nirav Modi has already been declared as an FEO by the special court. He has been lodged in jail in London since 2019.

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