Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw says 'Pandora Papers' wrongly implicates husband's offshore trust

The pharma tycoon said the news stories based on an expose by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) have wrongly implicated her husband's offshore trust, and termed the organisation as "bonafide" and "legitimate".

New Delhi: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw on Monday said the 'Pandora Papers' have wrongly implicated her husband's offshore trust, and termed the organisation as "bonafide" and "legitimate".

"Media stories reporting on Pandora Papers wrongly implicate my husband's offshore trust, which is a bonafide, legitimate trust and is managed by Independent Trustees. No Indian resident holds “the key” to the trust as alleged in these stories," Mazumdar-Shaw, the executive chairperson of biotechnology major Biocon, said in a tweet.

Millions of leaked documents dubbed as the 'Pandora Papers' by a worldwide journalistic partnership on October 3, claimed to have uncovered financial secrets of current and former world leaders, politicians and public officials in 91 countries and territories, including India.

The 'Pandora Papers' have named 300 Indian individuals, including Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Ambani, Nirav Modi and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which involved the BBC and 'The Guardian' newspaper in the UK and 'The Indian Express' in India among 150 media outlets in its investigation, claims it obtained the trove of more than 11.9 million confidential files to find secret financial dealings of many super-rich.

The 'Pandora Papers' are a follow-up to a similar project released in 2016, called the 'Panama Papers' compiled by the same journalistic group.

PTI