A screenshot showing 'Hub Power Company' as one of the purchasers of electoral bonds in India is viral online with a false claim that the company is based out of Pakistan.
BOOM found that the claims are false, Pakistan's 'The Hub Power Company Limited' confirmed to BOOM that they have not purchased electoral bonds in India and do not engage in any other business in the country.
Following orders from the Supreme Court, the SBI on March 14, 2024, released data related to donations made by companies to political parties via electoral bonds. Initial analyses of the documents reveals that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was the largest benefactor, receiving donations to the tune of Rs 6,061 crore. Following BJP was the All India Trinamool Congress (Rs 1,610 crore) and the Indian National Congress (Rs 1,422 crore).
Several claims on social media have suggested that Pakistan-based Hub Power Company has made a donation of Rs 95 lakh through electoral bonds. A caption on X claims that the money was donated to the Congress and reads, "Immediately after the Pulwama attack, Pakistan's power company Hub Power Company bought electrical bonds and donated it to an Indian political party. But to know to which party he donated, look at the pattern of donations on the same date. That is, Pakistan's power company donated more than Rs 10 crore to the Congress party immediately after the Pulwama attack."
Click here to view the post and here for the archive.
On the other hand, Congress' Chandigarh handle on Facebook made the same claim about how a Pakistani company purchased bonds, without naming any political party.
Click here to view the post.
Another post on X claimed that BJP was the beneficiary of this donation and wrote, "#BJP : The Pakistan Agents Confirmed!!! *** Pakistan based company, Hub Power Company, donated Electoral Bonds weeks after the #Pulwama attack! When the entire country was mourning the loss of 40 brave soldiers, someone was enjoying funding from Pakistan. Now you know why no proper investigation of Pulwama attacks was ever done & no culprits are caught yet. #ElectoralBondsCase"
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the Pakistan-based The Hub Power Company Limited did not purchase electoral bonds through the SBI.
We scanned Pakistan's Hub Power Company Limited's website and found that its name differed slightly from the one mentioned in the electoral bonds document.
Below is a comparison that clearly shows the full name of the Pakistan-based company as 'The Hub Power Company Limited' and the name stated in the electoral bonds document as 'Hub Power Company'
Further, BOOM reached out to Pakistan's The Hub Power Company Limited and spoke to Sarosh Saleem, their Chief of Staff and Head of Business Performance who refuted the viral claims. While highlighting the difference between the names of the two companies, Saleem said, "This could be another company based in India. We didn't even know such a company existed and we have no connection to them. We have not made any payments to India now or in the past."
It is important to note that a foreign company can purchase electoral bonds from SBI via its Indian subsidiaries. However, Saleem confirmed to BOOM that The Hub Power Company Limited does not have any subsidiaries in India.
What We Know So Far
We then ran a search for Hub Power Company India and found a listing on Indiamart, which indicated that the company was dealing in electric supplies. The listing also carried the company's GST Number, 07BWNPM0985J1ZX.
Taking a cue from this GST Number, we ran a search for the business on the government's Goods and Services Tax portal. We found that the company's registered address was in Delhi.
We also found that while the GST portal named Ravi Mehra as the proprietor of the business, Indiamart's listing named the owner as Manish Kumar. We tried to contact both numbers associated with the listing on Indiamart, but they were no longer operational. The company's effective date of GST registration, November 12, 2018, is also the date on which its GST status was cancelled. However, the alleged purchase of electoral bonds by Hub Power Company was done months later, in April 2019.
BOOM was not able to find any other details related to this Delhi-based Hub Power Company, but it is the only search result available online.
Additionally, the claim about either the Congress or BJP receiving this donation from Hub Power Company is misleading since the data released by State Bank of India does not carry information about which party received money from which donor.
The first document provided by SBI carried details of purchasers and the date on which they purchased a bond. The second document shows the date on which each political party made encashments and the corresponding amount encashed by them. However, the crucial data missing from both documents is a unique identification number for each purchase and encashment, that would essentially help link the donors to the political parties.
Without this identification number, it cannot be ascertained which party received the donation from Hub Power Company.
On March 15, a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud directed SBI to release these unique identification numbers. The matter has now been posted to March 18.
