For buying various properties in Mumbai as a Pakistani, the Indian Appellate Tribunal for the Foreign Exchange Management Act imposed a heavy fine of INR 5 million on singer Adnan Sami. In 2013, while being a Pakistani national, Sami purchased eight flats and five parking lots in Mumbai without requesting the permission of the Reserve bank of India.
At the time, Sami was a Pakistani national and was conferred Indian citizenship in 2016. The penalty increased from INR 2,000,000 when the court dismissed the Enforcement Directorate Special Director’s order for the property to be confiscated in December 2010.
Adnan Sami has already paid an INR 1,000,000 penalty and the remaining sum of the levy must be paid within three months of the order being issued. The Tribunal had dismissed the request of Adnan Sami against his property confiscation.
“The impugned order is set aside as far as the exercise of discretion under Section 13(2) of the Act. The finding arrived under Section 13(1) shall remain intact. Mr. Sami shall deposit the remaining ₹40 lakh with the respondent [ED] within three months from today. As no case under Section 13(2) (about the confiscation of eight flats and five parking space)…the said findings and part of the order is quashed,” said the Tribunal in its judgment.
On December 29, 2003, Adnan Sami purchased the properties in the Oberoi Sky Garden Co-operative Housing Society in Lokhandwala Mumbai.
The singer paid the flats a total of INR2.53 crore. He subsequently transferred the apartments long with some parking spaces to his then-wife Sabah Galadari, but then the Family Court proclaimed his marriage null and void. Adnan Sami argued in his plea that he was not aware a Pakistani national could not buy immovable property in India.
After trial, Tribunal noted that the “the flats were purchased by Indian Rupees, out of monies earned in India on which Income Tax has been paid, as well as monies loaned from India banks. The loans have been duly repaid.”
Adnan Sami following the case had applied for the Indian citizenship and he was granted Certificate of Neutralization on January 1st 2016.
