Indo-American founder of Devas, files petition against Nirmala Sitharam and other Indian officials

An Indo-American has filed petition in the US State Department against 11 Indians that even includes the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam. The citizen filed the petition under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act for corruption and serious human right violations. Through the petition, he has urged economic and visa sanction against the 11 Indians. 

The petitioner, Ramachandran Viswanathan, founder of Devas enforced a $1 billion arbitration judgement. This comes in as part of a long ongoing battle between Devas Multimedia and the Indian Government. 

Sitharam has accused the earlier UPA government for the fiasco. In January, she stated that the government will contest the adverse international arbitration awards on the basis of a Supreme Court Judgement that upheld orders dismissing the appeal by Devas Multimedia for winding up the company by the National Company Law Tribunal. She blamed the Congress government for not appointing an arbitrator to fight Devas Multimedia in international arbitration tribunals. 

 The disputes arose when the UPA government cancelled a deal earlier between Devas and ISRO company, Antrix. Since then the investors filed three cases for international arbitration. India lost all of the arbitrations. Recently, Ramchandran Viswanathan took up cudels against the New Delhi by laying claim on Air India’s assets in Canada and on Indian Government-owned property in France.  A Canadian Court authorized the seizure of assets belonging to Airport Authority of India and Air India in December 2021.

The recent petition comes in as another attempt to bring the Indian Government to the dispute settlement table. Along with Sitharam, the other Indians against whom the petition has been filed includes, Antrix CEO Rakesh Sasibhushan, two Supreme Court Judges and Ashish Pareek (CBI), Sanjay Kumar Mishra and other ED officials.