Vivek Doval vs The Caravan: His business partner accuses magazine of publishing ‘incorrect facts’

Vivek Doval’s defamation suit against The Caravan magazine went through another hearing on Thursday. Amit Sharma, a key witness in the case, was questioned in the Rouse Avenue Court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal. He accused the magazine of publishing “incorrect facts and insinuations”.

Sharma was co-founder of Doval’s company GNY Asia, which is at the heart of the matter. In January 2019, The Caravan reported that Doval, son of India’s national security advisor, Ajit Doval, ran a hedge fund, GNY Asia, from the Cayman Islands, a tax haven. In response, Doval filed a criminal defamation case against the reporter Kaushal Shroff, the magazine’s editor Paresh Nath, and Congress leader Jairam Ramesh. 

Ramesh had held a press conference, where he echoed The Caravan story to accuse Doval junior of corruption. In his suit, Doval claims the three people caused “irreparable damage” to his reputation “through calculated insinuations and innuendos”. 

Doval testified in the case in early September. On Thursday, it was Sharma’s turn. He was questioned by Sonam Gupta, the advocate representing Doval, as Ramesh and Bhavook Chauhan, counsel for The Caravan, watched.

Gupta started by asking Sharma some personal questions. 

Which country’s citizenship does he hold?

He’s a British citizen, Sharma replied.

“Your educational qualifications?” 

“I did my graduation from IIT Delhi and MBA from INSEAD, France, one of the leading business schools in the world. I also hold a CFA Charter from CFA Institute, US.”

“Where have you worked?”

“From 2002 to 2004, I worked as an analyst with ZAN Partners, London, for a salary of thirty five thousand pounds. In 2004, I joined Deutsche Bank, London, as a semiconductor analyst and I received a hundred thousand pounds. I was promoted to the post of credit analyst in 2006. My last drawn salary from Deutsche was two lakh pounds.” 

Sharma then went on to work at Macquarie Bank in London and that is where Doval became his client. “I have known Vivek since 2004 when we were both semiconductor analysts at Deutsche Bank and Bear Stearns. We were in regular contact. In 2008, I joined Macquarie. Vivek had joined Boyer Allan, a hedge fund in London managing about two billion dollars. Vivek became my client. After that, we regularly discussed stock and investment ideas.”

In 2011, Boyer Allan shut down. “Vivek was looking at doing something and it was then that we started discussing the idea of a hedge fund,” Sharma said. “Over time Vivek and I grew closer professionally because our ideas matched and we shared the same values.”

Gupta then asked Sharma about his partnership with Doval, how and when they launched their first company, and their funding?

“When we first came up with this idea, we realised it was too early to launch a fund since we did not have a track record as portfolio managers. So, Vivek then joined British Airways as a portfolio manager and we started meeting regularly early morning on Saturdays to discuss our ideas of the fund and strategies,”  Sharma replied.

He then submitted a 13-page document containing what he said were the emails the two of them had exchanged about “investment methodology”.

“In 2014, we started soft marketing. But we needed somebody to invest with us to make a hedge fund,” Sharma continued, mentioning a series of trips to  Hong Kong and Singapore to meet service providers and potential investors.

They incorporated their first company, Vivam, in London in 2013, but had to shutter it soon because they failed to find any investor. In 2015, Sharma recalled meeting Mohammad Althaf, a close friend of Doval’s who showed interest in their investment strategies. 

At this point, Sharma submitted another document, 25 pages thick, detailing a 2015 visit to Singapore to discuss with service providers the procedures and costs for setting up a potential fund.

Chauhan and two other lawyers representing the defendants objected, claiming that they had not been informed that Sharma would submit documents to the court. But the court allowed the documents to be entered into the record.

Sharma then went on to describe how he and Doval formed GNY Asia. “In January 2016, I again met Althaf and he mentioned that if we were to leave our jobs and set up a fund he would be keen to invest 10 million dollars in it,” Sharma claimed. That’s what they did.

GNY Asia, in fact, was just Vivam with a new name, Sharma confirmed. He was managing director of the company, which aimed to invest in larger Asian countries such as India, China, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. “It started with a corpus of eleven million dollars,” he said of their company. “We had seven investors, including Althaf, Vivek and me.”

When they decided to launch GNY Asia in India, Sharma said he contacted Edelweiss and Kotak Securities to become the fund’s custodian. They chose Edelweiss in the end because “they were more responsive”. “At any given time,” he said, “the maximum that we invested in India was less than two million dollars.”

Then, Gupta’s questioning turned to The Caravan story.

“Are you aware of the allegations made against Vivek and the fund?” she asked.

“Yes,” Sharma replied. “As head of research of GNY Asia, my role involved tracking news flow on a regular basis. I came across The Caravan article on Google News. Subsequently, I social media trends. One that I remember on Twitter was #chotadoval. In fact, one of the twitter posts also mentioned me and my house in London. My LinkedIn profile views suddenly went up, and then I saw Jairam Ramesh’s press conference.”

He was furious after reading the story, Sharma recalled, because he knew the “allegations were false”. “Firstly, the title of this article, which mentioned ‘D Companies’, refers to Dawood Ibrahim which is a false connotation. There are several incorrect facts and insinuations about GNY Asia in the article. The press conference and the media coverage further lowered Vivek’s and GNY’s credibility in the eyes of investors. Investors were of the view that Vivek should step down regardless of the truth of the allegations. Fund management business is one of trust and integrity and such coverage was detrimental to our business.”  

After Sharma finished giving his testimony, Chauhan and the other defence counsel asked for time to check the evidence submitted by the witness. The judge agreed and listed the case for hearing again on November 14, 15 and 16.