No transactions done for ‘personal purpose’, says Jayant Sinha

NEW DELHI: Union minister Jayant Sinha’s name has cropped up in the leaked list of ‘Paradise Papers’ of companies having offshore entities globally even as he on Monday said the transactions were not done for any “personal purpose”.

Sinha had worked with Omidyar Network as Managing Director in India and Omidyar Network had invested in a US company D.light Design that has a subsidiary in Cayman Islands, according to a report based on the Paradise Papers investigation.

In a series of tweets on Monday, Sinha said the transactions were legal and bonafide. The transactions were undertaken on behalf of highly reputed world-leading organisations in my fiduciary role as partner at Omidyar Network and its designated representative on the D.light Board, the Minister of State for Civil Aviation said.

“It is crucial to note that these transactions were done for D.light as an Omidyar representative, and not for any personal purpose,” he noted.

Sinha, who is a former venture capitalist, also said all these transactions have been fully disclosed to relevant authorities through all necessary filings as required.

“After leaving Omidyar Network, I was asked to continue on the D.light Board as an independent director... On joining the Union Council of Ministers, I immediately resigned from D.light Board and severed my involvement with the company,” the minister said. Sinha had earlier served as Minister of State for Finance. The Paradise Papers is an investigation into offshore and banking assets carried out by the Indian Express with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).