Mahabharata in Polyester: The Making of the World's Richest Brothers and Their Feud by Hamish McDonald

Author:Hamish McDonald [McDonald, Hamish]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Autobiography, Biography, Business, Non-Fiction, Rich & Famous
ISBN: 9781742231587
Google: prFa4kbotqoC
Amazon: 1742231586
Publisher: UNSW Press
Published: 2010-09-12T16:00:00+00:00

13

Murder medley

Since March 1987 the tables had been turned against Nusli Wadia and the Indian Express, both beleaguered on many fronts.

Ramnath Goenka’s health was failing, and the old Marwari newspaper baron was spending long spells in hospital. But he was continuing the fight, even though the Indian Express was facing its worst period since Indira’s Emergency. By the end of 1988 more than 230 prosecutions had been launched against the group by agencies in charge of company law, customs, income tax, foreign exchange and import quotas. Government advertising was withdrawn and banks directed to refuse credit. In Bangalore, the Express had continual trouble with its communications lines. Staff were harassed by goondas. A previous ally in exposing Reliance, the tabloid Blitz, had switched sides by mid-1987 when it captioned a picture of Express Towers as the ‘House of Forgers’ and called its editor, Arun Shourie, the ‘Ace of Liars’. By late 1989 the Express group was on the brink of collapse, Shourie later revealed.1

From how high up the pressure started is indicated in the memoirs of the senior civil servant, Madhav Godbole. As Finance Secretary for the state of Maharashtra during 1986–89, Godbole was instrumental in denying requests by Reliance for additional concessions in state sales tax on production at Patalganga – one request being for sales tax breaks on production in excess of licensed capacity. Godbole recounts direct requests in person by Dhirubhai and Mukesh Ambani, lobbying on Reliance’s behalf by the Marathi-language writer Bal Samant and by Congress MP Murli Deora, a string of invitations to concerts at Dhirubhai’s home and a call from the Reliance public relations department asking whether Godbole and his wife would be interested in some shares from the directors’ allotment in a current Reliance issue. Godbole refused all requests and offers. In April 1989 anonymous telephone threats to his home late at night caused Godhole to obtain police protection. Finally, the state’s Chief Minister, Sharad Pawar, called Godbole in and told him of ‘a lot of pressure from 7 Race Course Road’ – the prime minister’s official residence in New Delhi.2

After his arrest by the CBI in August 1987 for a wrong entry in a hotel ledger, Nusli Wadia encountered many other challenges apart from his intense battle over paraxylene. He and his companies were scrutinised for any possible violations of the Companies Act, the foreign exchange regulations and customs and excise regimes. Income tax inspectors revisited his tax returns for the previous thirteen years.

In the early hours of 12 July 1989 Wadia returned to Bombay’s Santa Cruz airport from an overseas trip. Immigration officials served him with a deportation order, which said the Government of India had declared him an undesirable alien. Wadia had just over twenty-four hours to leave the country of his birth, where he had spent most of his life and where his family had a continuous record of business for more than 300 years.

He began an urgent legal appeal and got a court to stay the expulsion order.

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