Government Condemns False Reporting on Cairn Legal Dispute

The Government of India has strongly denounced false reports in some media outlets alleging that the Government of India has allegedly requested state-owned banks to withdraw funds from foreign currency accounts in anticipation of possible forfeiture of such accounts in connection with the Cairn legal dispute.

The Government of India has condemned all such source-based reports as fake, claiming that they are completely inaccurate and not based on true facts. Certain vested interests seem to have engineered such deceptive reporting, which often depends on anonymous sources and paints a skewed image of the case's factual and legal developments.

In this legal conflict, the Indian government is vehemently defending its position. It is true that the government lodged an application in The Hague Court of Appeal on March 22, 2021, to have the deeply flawed December 2020 international arbitral award overturned.

The government has made many claims in support of the award being set aside, including but not limited to:

1)I The arbitral tribunal erred in exercising jurisdiction over a national tax dispute that the Republic of India had never provided or agreed to arbitrate.
2) The award is based on an egregious tax avoidance scheme that was a flagrant breach of Indian tax laws, depriving Cairn's suspected investments of any safeguards under the India-UK bilateral investment treaty.
3) The award incorrectly ratifies Cairn's Double Non-Taxation system, which was intended to avoid paying taxes anywhere in the world, a major public policy issue for governments around the world.

This case is still pending. The government is committed to using all legal means at its disposal to protect its position in this conflict around the world.

The CEO and representatives of Cairns have also approached the Indian government for talks to resolve the problem, according to the report. Constructive talks have taken place, and the government remains hopeful that the conflict will be resolved amicably within the country's legal structure.