Panchshil confirms Sharad Pawar’s lie

A day after DNA exposed agriculture minister Sharad Pawar’s lie in connection with his Rs12 crore assets declaration to the prime minister and the country, Panchshil Realty Group on Wednesday admitted that it issued bonus shares to the NCP president.

Pawar’s declaration did not mention the bonus shares.
Panchshil Hotels Pvt Ltd issued a clarification to DNA stating that the company on December 1, 2009, announced bonus shares in the ratio of 1:1 to Pawar and his wife Pratibha.

This raised the duo’s shares to 2.90 lakh and 2.94 lakh respectively. In his declaration, Pawar mentioned that as of March 31, 2011, his wife and he had 1.47 lakh shares each in the company.

Defending Pawar’s non-disclosure of the actual number of shares held by him and his wife, Panchshil’s company secretary Ashish Kulkarni said the “company inadvertently did not intimate and/or dispatch the physical share certificates to the shareholder”.     

In its report (Pawar fooled all with Rs12 cr assets disclosure) published on Wednesday, DNA wrote how Pawar also wrongly mentioned the company’s name as Panchil Hotels Ltd in his declaration. His office later called it a typing error.

Kulkarni said Pawar and Pratibha purchased 25,000 shares each for Rs2.50 lakh each on November 17, 1997, from Panchshil Hotels Pvt Ltd. On January 27, 2000, the company’s promoter Ishwardas Chordia sold 1.22 lakh shares to Pratibha for Rs8.54 lakh and 1.20 lakh shares to Pawar for Rs8.54 lakh.

The Panchshil Group, however, remained silent on the business relationship between Panchshil Realty and 2G scam accused Shahid Balwa’s DB Realty Group despite documentary evidence highlighted by DNA in its report.