By Our Business Affairs Bureau
BHUBANESWAR (ODISHA) : Leading activists and market experts were on Sunday demanded a CBI probe into the state of affairs of Thrissur, Kerala based Kalyan Jewellers, which is running an outlet in Bhubaneswar, State Capital of Odisha.
How TK Seetharam Iyer, who owns a textile store in Kerala’s Thrissur district but his son , TS Kalyanaraman, chairman and managing director of Kalyan Jewellers, now Croropati. Where is CBI? Where is Enforcement Squad? Where is Income Tax, Sales Tax officials?
“In March 2014, Punjagutta Police in Andhra Pradesh had registered a cheating case against Kalyan Jewellers after a customer lodged a complaint against the management alleging that they had sold him inferior quality gold. A case was registered against Kalyan Jewellers under section 420 (Cheating) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), added AK Kandi, a social worker in Bhubaneswar.
Another Jeweller shop owner in Bhubaneswar also alleged that in November 2015, a customer alleged that he bought a gold ring for his father on new year eve.Bill reference: BLRGHC020964) from Kalyan Jewellers.After 2 days of use, gold coating to his shock started wearing off, and silver color metal which was underlying was uncovered.
To this fraudulent Jewelers, the great Big B read Amitabh Bachhan, his wife Jaya Bachhan, daughter-in-laws Aishwarya Rai Bachhan, and southern super stars like Nagarjuna were giving publicity?
“Dont believe what the brand ambassadors say about these Jewelers. They are being paid by fooling common people.My experience was the worst. I visited the Bhubaneswar outlet and unaware of their tactics to fool people.
Their sales manager is well trained to fool people in the name of gold card and discount. Don’t ever visit this place,” added a customer who earlier cheated at Kalyan Jewellers Pune outlet in Maharashtra.Police had registered a cheating case against Kalyan Jewellers after a customer lodged a complaint against the management alleging that they had sold him inferior quality gold, he added.
“A CBI probe into Company’s business in India, abroad, also in Bhubaneswar could unearth Kalyanaraman’s illegal gold-diamond empire from Kerala to Odisha,” added an activist. He further added that, Company’s outlet at Vani Vihar Square (Utkal University) under Sahid Nagar Police Station in Bhubaneswar creating a lot of traffic problem and law and order problem.
However, there is major scam going on in India, as far as the jewellers go. The local Jeweler whom the women in your family trust, is not providing real gold in most of the cases. Kalyan Jewelers and some other major brands in the market, tell that their stuff is trustable. However, if you have to return to them, they also cut 10%. This is too much, if they have to get real gold back, they can easily melt it and make it in real gold. There is no big wastage, added one market expert.
And, the machines which tell you real carat of gold only sees the surface gold. There are even scams in which the top surface is high quality and high karat gold, which lower or inner layers of your bangles or other jewelry are made with lower carat gold.
Kalyan Jewellers recently had withdrawn the controversial advertisement featuring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. The advertisement drawn huge flak after an open letter described it as ‘insidiously chauvinistic for showing Aishwarya reclining under a parasol held over her head by an ‘a dark-skinned slave-boy’.
The shift to jewellery from textile was triggered by illegal business. The Company is evading sales tax, income tax, service tax, export-import duties. A raid by CBI, Enforcement Squad, Income Tax, Sales Tax will expose TS Kalyanaraman’s true face, added a source.Asked about it, a senior Police officer in Bhubaneswar said, matter will be looked into, action will be taken if traffic rule violations found at of Kalyan Jewellers outlet.
In Odisha, the Company opened an outlet in Bhubaneswar, which is facing local resistance for the Company’s low quality product and false publicity using Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya to fool the people of Odisha.
The Company false Hallmark print, low quality product and false publicity using advertisements to fool the people of Odisha, will strongly opposed, he added. Most of the Hallmark items should be probed by Indian Bureau of Standards. Company’s weight machine check should probed by weight and measures officials.
Kalyanaraman, 66, has a net worth that is a shade over more than $1.5 billion. He ranked 87 on Forbes’s list of 100 richest Indians in 2014.
The company’s recent showrooms at Salt Lake, Gariahat and Camac Street in Kolkata also need CBI probe.
Kalyan, which has 100 showrooms, proposed to open 20 more stores in India and five in the Middle East this fiscal with a total investment of Rs 700 crore in India and Rs 200 crore overseas, including Saudi Arabia.
The company, which registered 30 per cent growth, expected a turnover of Rs 13,000 crore in the current fiscal as against about Rs 10,000 recorded during 2015-16.
In order to keep his illigal gold-diomond business hassle free, Kalyan Jewellers had said it would build 2,000 homes for low income and marginalised families in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in the next two years.
