Is India 's Prime Minister really using Sita's husband's name to do Nita's husband's work? How much truth is there in this sentence — maybe this story will reveal it.
In 2002, Reliance Company discovered oil and gas reserves in the Bay of Bengal, off the coast of Andhra Pradesh. All the machinery was brought in so the oil and gas could be extracted.
In 2005, Anil Ambani and Mukesh Ambani split up the family assets. In this split, Mukesh Ambani got Reliance Industries, IPCL, and the oil, gas, refinery, and petrochemicals business. In other words, the entire oil and gas business went to Mukesh Ambani.
That same year, 2005, ONGC also found oil reserves right next to Reliance's field. ONGC also started setting up machinery to extract oil and gas.
In 2007, a company called Biometrix Marketing was set up in Singapore. This company had barely gotten off the ground when it invested $1.8 billion — around ₹6,500 crore at the time — into India's Reliance Company.
This investment raised suspicions at the Indian High Commission in Singapore, and they launched an investigation. India's CAG also grew suspicious about the reported cost of oil extraction and started its own investigation.
By 2008, all of Reliance's equipment was up and running, and oil extraction began. The following year, 2009, gas extraction also started. Sometime later, ONGC also began pulling out oil and gas.
In 2011, the CAG released a Special Performance Audit Report claiming that Reliance was inflating its oil extraction costs. Back in 2004, Reliance had estimated the cost of extraction at $2.2 billion, roughly ₹10,000 crore. Then in 2006, that figure was bumped up to ₹38,000 crore. So a cost that should've been ₹10,000 crore was being reported as ₹38,000 crore.
Because of this inflated cost, the Indian government would end up with less profit — since when the company sells the oil and gas, it recovers its costs first, and only shares the profit with the government afterward.
The CAG had already filed its report, but the very next month, in August 2011, the Indian High Commission in Singapore sent a report to the Enforcement Directorate (ED). In it, they said they suspected something was off with the foreign investment that had come into Reliance — because Biometrix, the company that sent the money, had a net worth of just ₹29 lakh. So how did it manage to send ₹6,500 crore? They suspected the money had actually been routed from India to Singapore and then sent right back to India.
Following this, the ED launched an investigation, and in 2013 opened a formal inquiry into the matter. The ED called in several Reliance officials for questioning. Around this time, Biometrix Marketing shut down in Singapore.
Prashant Bhushan also weighed in, saying the case needed to be investigated by an SIT. He alleged that Reliance was involved in money laundering, and he raised a few pointed questions for the company:
Is Biometrix really such a generous company that, despite having a net worth of only ₹29 lakh, it took out a ₹6,500 crore loan from ICICI Bank Singapore just to invest it in Reliance Industries? And what collateral did Biometrix put up for that loan?
In response, Reliance issued a press note saying all these allegations were false.
While the ED's inquiry was still ongoing, in 2013 ONGC filed a case against Reliance over gas migration. As mentioned earlier, ONGC's oil field sits right next to Reliance's. ONGC alleged that Reliance was extracting and selling gas from ONGC's side of the field. ONGC then had the American firm DeGolyer and MacNaughton investigate, and the findings showed that Reliance had sold roughly ₹11,000 crore worth of gas that wasn't rightfully theirs.
In 2014, elections were held — Congress lost, and the BJP won.
The ONGC case was still ongoing, but the ED was busy trying to recover money from Anil Ambani. Meanwhile, nothing seemed to be happening on Mukesh Ambani's case. Maybe something's moving behind the scenes, but from 2013 until now, no report has come out.
Is this why both the father and the son keep singing praises of the Indian Prime Minister?
What do you think — is our Prime Minister really using Sita's husband's name to do Nita's husband's work? If the father sings praises, it's understandable — Reliance Industries is on the line. But why is the son singing praises too... is Vantara on the line as well?