KOCHI: NRI businessman C C Thampi finds himself under further scrutiny, with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) reasserting in a recent chargesheet his substantial and intertwined relationship with Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra — both at a personal and business level.
Cheruvathur Chekkutty Thampi, who hails from Kottol, in Thrissur’s Pazhanji, saw his modest origins lead him to UAE in the 1970s, where his fortunes changed in his mid-20s.
The 66-year-old has been a prominent player in the UAE real estate sector since the 1980s. He arrived in Ajman in the late ‘70s, initially working in hotels and taking on odd jobs. Subsequently, he founded Holiday Constructions, focusing on small-scale projects during a period of boom in the emirates.
Holiday Constructions went on to carry out major projects in Ajman and Sharjah, and Thampi diversified into hotels, retail, car rental, and other businesses. In 2008, he established the Cheruvathur Foundation and founded Thejus Engineering College in Thrissur.
With Holiday City Centre, another of his real-estate ventures, he acquired extensive farmlands across India, including in Kerala, building a substantial network of contacts among politicians in Kerala, Karnataka, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab, according to an income tax officer who had investigated him.
Thampi first drew national attention in 2009 when the CBI initiated a case against him for allegedly securing AICTE approval for his engineering college without meeting guidelines.
Although the CBI closed the case after an investigation, the ED and I-T department began monitoring his investments in 2012. In November of that year, the ED served a notice under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), leading to Thampi filing a writ petition before the Kerala High Court.
The petition was dismissed in 2016. Facing fresh summons in 2017 for payments totalling Rs 288 crore, Thampi was briefly taken into custody by the ED in December 2016 in Chennai, but legal challenges resulted in his release.
In August 2018, the CBI reopened the AICTE approval case, filing a chargesheet against him. Thampi has undergone multiple interrogations over his reported connections with Vadra.
AICTE APPROVAL CASE
Thampi first drew national attention in 2009 when the CBI initiated a case against him for allegedly securing AICTE approval for his engineering college without meeting guidelines.
Although the CBI closed the case after an investigation, the ED and I-T department began monitoring his investments in 2012.