Hoshnar Kapadia has not worked on its matters, says Vodafone

NEW DELHI: Telecom major Vodafone India said accounting firm Ernst & Young has confirmed that Hoshnar Kapadia, son of Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia, has not worked on any Vodafone-related matters.

In a statement, the company said the due diligence report on the Vodafone-Hutchison deal, on which the Income Tax Department had lost its case in the Supreme Court, was produced by E&Y's London office, a year before Hoshnar joined its Mumbai office.

"In fact, during the transaction between January 2007 to May 2007, Mr Hoshnar Kapadia was not working either for E&Y UK or E&Y India. He was working at the relevant time with KPMG, a competitor of E&Y.

"This Due Diligence report was heavily relied upon by the Tax Authorities throughout the four years of litigation and was not relevant to Vodafone's legal arguments. Hence, the possibility of a conflict of interest arising is difficult to comprehend," the statement said.

The Vodafone statement comes in the context of a public interest litigation filed in the Supreme Court, urging for a review of the judgement in the Vodafone tax case since there was an alleged conflict of interest because Hoshnar had worked with E&Y, the firm which advised Vodafone Group in 2007 on the Hutchison Whampoa deal.