On 20 July 2015, The Caravan published the first installment of a list that consisted of 222 people, including some of India’s top politicians, bureaucrats and journalists. This list was a part of an email that had been sent on 1 November 2010, by Alok Chauhan, a corporate affairs executive at Essar Services India Limited (ESIL) to Sunil Bajaj, the director and head of the corporate relations group at ESIL. The email and the list appeared to indicate that those mentioned had been sent iPads by Essar on Diwali that fell on 5 November that year.
The first part of this list contained the names and responses of all the journalists who had received iPads from Essar according to the document, while the second one concerned itself with the politicians who had been mentioned. The third and final part of this series comprises the names of the bureaucrats who received an iPad according to the list. While The Caravan attempted to get in touch with all those whose names have been recorded, several people we contacted were either not available or declined to respond. This list also contains the names of those for whom iPads were never requisitioned leave alone delivered by Essar. We have reproduced it in its entirety only in the interest of veracity.
The names on these lists and the process through which they were contacted and gifted iPads by Essar, reveals the time and effort that the company was willing to invest in cultivating influence. The bureaucrats that the Essar appears to have reached out to were placed in ministries such as environment, home affairs, finance, corporate affairs and steel, while some of them were even a part of the intelligence bureau, cabinet secretariat planning commission and prime minister’s office.
A former employee from Essar who is familiar with the organisation’s processes told The Caravan that a relationship manager listed under the column “Rel_Mgr” in the document had been assigned the responsibility for delivering the gifts to select subsets on the list. In most cases, these iPads were hand-delivered and any that were returned on the spot were marked on the document. Out of a total of 195 iPads that were issued, only 21 were marked as returned. While it is possible that these iPads were returned after this list had been compiled, it is noteworthy that out of the 19 bureaucrats that The Caravan was able to get in touch with, not even one admitted to accepting the gift themselves.
1. JM Mauskar was then an additional secretary at the ministry of environment and forests. On being asked about whether he received an iPad from Essar, he said, “I have an iPad, but it was duly purchased after I retired in 2012.” He also said that he was not aware of Essar sending him any iPads and added, “I was using a Sony laptop given to me by the ministry in 2010.”
2. MF Farooqui was then an additional secretary at the ministry of environment and forests. He told The Caravan that he did not receive an iPad before clarifying by saying that, “I do not remember.” “I do not have any connections with [Essar],” he added.
3. Rakesh Srivastava was then a joint secretary (ports) at the ministry of shipping. He categorically told The Caravan that he has “never received an iPad from anyone.”
4. S Sundaresan was then a secretary at the ministry of petroleum and natural gas. Sunderasan stated that he did not take any iPad from Essar. On being asked about whether or not he recalled being offered the device by the company, he said, “No, I do not think it was offered either.”
5. PD Sudhakar was then a special secretary at the ministry of corporate affairs. Sudhakar refused to comment on the story and told the reporter from The Caravan that, “I do not want to say anything about this.”
6. UP Singh was then the principal secretary of state agriculture department in Odisha. “I am not aware of anything of this sort,” Singh said. “They can make all kinds of lists but I never received anything from them,” he told the reporter at The Caravan before adding, “Even today I do not use anything of this sort.”
7. Arun Maira was then a member of the planning commission. “I do have an iPad, which I use, but I bought this one myself,” Maira told the reporter at The Caravan. He added, “I may have passed it along to someone, I don’t recall. The planning commission receives a lot of such things. The usual thing, then, to do was to have something of the kind of a lottery among the staff and let the winner keep whatever she or he wanted to. I mean nothing of this is the sort of thing that you can’t afford on your own anyway, right?”
8. Ashok Chawla was then the secretary (finance) at the ministry of finance. “I do not think that is correct,” Chawla told the reporter at The Caravan, before reiterating, “I did not receive an iPad.”
9. Christy L Fernandes was then the secretary to the president, Pratibha Patil. On being asked about the iPad, Fernandes said, “I have no memory of this.” He added, “The only (iPad) that I use is the one that I had bought on one of my overseas trips.”
10. C Rangarajan was then the chairman of the economic advisory council to the prime minister. Rangarajan told the reporter at The Caravan that, “I have no recollection of this whatsoever.” He went on to add, while laughing, “This is a very strange thing to hear. I have no contacts with them [Essar] and I certainly did not receive an iPad from them. In fact, I do not even use an iPad.”
11. R Gopalan was then a secretary at the ministry of finance (department of financial services). He told the reporter at The Caravan that, “The standing instruction at my house, around the time of Diwali, is that if there is anything other than sweets—which I allow the staff members to distribute among themselves—it is a strict no.” Gopalan went on to add that, “The government salary allows me to buy an iPad if I wish to. The information [that I received an iPad as a gift from Essar] is absolutely incorrect. Absolutely incorrect.”
12. Vishwapati Trivedi was then the additional secretary and financial advisor at the ministry of home affairs. Trivedi said that, “No, I didn’t receive it [the iPad]. I don’t even know these guys [Essar] at all.”
13. Sumit Bose was then a secretary (disinvestment) at the ministry of finance. He told the reporter at The Caravan, “No, I don’t recall receiving anything like that.”
14. K Mohandas was then a secretary in the ministry of shipping. He said that, “No, I didn’t receive any iPad from anybody.”
15. Shatrughan Singh was then a joint secretary at the prime minister’s office. He told the reporter at The Caravan that, “I will cross-check.” Upon being called back, Singh told the reporter that, “I did not receive anything from them [Essar].”
16. KM Chandrasekhar was then the cabinet secretary. He told the reporter at The Caravan, “I did not receive any iPad.”
17.Vijai Sharma was then the environment secretary and is now the chief information commissioner of India. His personal secretary told the reporter at The Caravan that, “He did not receive any iPad.”
18. Sunil Mitra was then a secretary (revenue) at the ministry of finance. He said, “I don’t have any recollection of this, and I don’t have an iPad. Of course, we used to get a lot of gifts, but the usual practice, as far as anything expensive was concerned, was to return it.”
19. Pankaj Saran was then a joint secretary at the prime minister’s office and is now the high commissioner from India to Bangladesh. He responded to The Caravan’s queries through an email that said, “The answer to your question is ‘No’.”
Manish Kedia, the senior vice president of corporate affairs at Essar Services India Limited (ESIL), responded to The Caravan's queries regarding this list and said that, "This email is now almost 5 years old and therefore we will have to check our internal records before confirming whether any such email was exchanged and what was the contents of that email. However, what is shocking is that you are claiming to be in possession of an internal email which may have reached you pursuant to a data theft. Admittedly this email according to you is a communication between our employees and therefore remains the property of the Company. We have recently come to know that data has been stolen from our IT system. This is a matter of grave concern to us because a large number of emails may contain confidential information about the Company and its employees. We request you to immediately provide us a copy of that email...If you circulate, publish and or disseminate any such data and or email or the contents therein then we will take appropriate action in accordance with law."
Note: This report has been updated to clarify the nature of the Essar list.