National Security Advisor Ajit Doval’s son Vivek Doval has filed a criminal defamation complaint against the editor and a reporter of The Caravan magazine for publishing an article that alleged he was running a hedge fund in the Cayman Islands, ANI reported.
In addition to Editor-in-Chief Paresh Nath and reporter Kaushal Shroff, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh has also been named in the complaint filed at the Patiala House Court in Delhi, ANI said. The court will hear the matter on Tuesday.
The complaint claimed that the report maligned and defamed Vivek Doval, “seemingly to settle scores” with his father, News18 reported.
The Caravan report, headlined “D-Companies” and published on January 16, said Vivek Doval ran a hedge fund out of a tax haven even as his father advocated a crackdown on entities seeking shelter in such enclaves. Trade documents accessed by The Caravan showed that the hedge fund was registered in the Cayman Islands just 13 days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government announced the demonetisation of high-denomination currency notes on November 8, 2016. Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 banknotes had ceased to be legal tender after the announcement, which pulled 86% of India’s currency out of circulation at the time.
After the publication of The Caravan article, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Thursday sought an investigation by the Reserve Bank of India into Vivek Doval’s hedge fund. “Opening funds there [Cayman Islands] is not illegal, but questions must be raised on how as per RBI data from 2000 to 2017, India received Rs 8,300 crore FDI from Cayman, but post demonetisation, India received approximately the same amount in just one year alone,” Ramesh said.
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