Kerala indeed is funny place. The man who nailed Sahara group and its decades of financial irregularities has been nailed by a case involving his wife wife’s assets in Kerala, by a PIL in Kerala high court. The man, who could have owned villas in Amby Valley in Lonawala or Swiss alps if he had helped Sahara group then, is now being accused of making a shopping complex near his home town.
The man is no ordinary person. Dr. K.M. Abraham, a former Whole-Time Member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), is best known for his role in exposing the irregularities of the Sahara Group, specifically its subsidiary companies Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Limited (SIREC) and Sahara Housing Investment Corporation Limited (SHIC). One has heard in Delhi power corridors that he did not budge despite the then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee nudging him to help fellow Bengali babu Subrata Roy, who was caught in the web of cases monitored by the Supreme Court following Dr Abraham’s investigation.
The case led to Mr Roy in jail and almost the eclipse of the Sahara group, which should have been a delight of ED and its anti-money laundering operations now. Dr Abraham, a Harvard trained IAS person, with that case lost his elevation to the Finance Ministry at the Centre and returned to Kerala cadre and rose to be the Chief Secretary . He retired in 2017 and is now Spl secretary to Chief Minister and heading the KIFBI, a financial arm of the State government to fund developmental projects. Well the crab mentality of Mallus have caught up with him even after retirement and HC has ordered a CBI inquiry into the issue of ” Income and assets” of this top officer. Today, true to himself, he wrote to his staff at KIFBI that he is not resigning but going to face the investigation, just as when he was Finance Secretary of Kerala. Anyway, good lesson for officers, that when you were to get a villa in the Swiss Alps, you did not take it and now for a shopping complex in your home town, you face CBI..what an irony of the situation. ( let me make it clear , I donot know the man personally or socially -but just heard about him and his activities-especially with Sahara investigation) .
The Hindi news paper in their article wrote this in an item “ The man who nailed Sahara, “When the Supreme Court castigated Sahara Parivar chief Subarata Roy, and sent him to judicial custody on Tuesday, one man must have finally permitted himself a smile — K. M. Abraham, former board member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the man who investigated the Sahara scam. If the case survived the numerous obfuscations, dilatory tactics and twists and turns of the last three years, it was entirely due to Dr. Abraham’s watertight order of June 2011. The 99-page order that he put together under conditions of extreme pressure and stress was scholarly and extremely well-researched at one level even as it brilliantly demolished all the false defences put up by Sahara’s lawyers.”
Whatever be the outcome of the CBI investigation ordered by Kerala High Court, such a public appreciation of Dr KN Abraham’s work as a regulator of financial market will stand good in public space.
