Did Swamy's letter to PM result in SBI scrapping its Shariah fund?

by confuzzled dude Fri Mar 20, 2015 9:28 am

The decision of State Bank of India (SBI) to put off the launch of a Shariah-compliant equity mutual fund has once again sparked debates on whether India should open doors to the concept of Islamic finance and facilitate a market for Shariah compliant financial products.

The fund was designed to invest in Shariah (Islamic law) compliant companies.

Dinesh Kumar Khara, managing director and CEO of SBI Mutual Fund, told Firstpost that SBI’s decision to defer the fund launch, originally planned in December, was a commercial call.

“We needed to study the product a little more,” Khera said. But, Congress' member K Rahman Khan had on Wednesday said in Parliament that the decision was due to political intervention.

According to people familiar with the development, the decision was prompted by political pressure after BJP leader Subramanian Swamy wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking Modi’s intervention to stop the launch of the MF product.

Firstpost couldn’t independently verify the authenticity of this letter or source of the letter. Calls and text messages made to Swamy didn’t elicit any response at the time of writing this story. In the letter, Swamy has argued that permitting Islamic finance can be politically and economically disastrous for the economy.

Swamy has been a long-time critic of Shariah finance.

The SBI Shariah fund, which had received the market regulator Sebi’s go ahead was cancelled at the last moment, according to Abdur Raqeeb, general secretary of Indian centre for Islamic Finance.

“A few days before the launching date Dinesh Kumar Khara had invited me and he was very sure of investment and asked us to support it. But later it was suddenly cancelled (due to political intervention),” said Raqeeb.

http://www.firstpost.com/business/sbis-decision-to-defer-shariah-fund-launch-was-political-not-commercial-2164627.html

by Vakavaka Pakapaka Fri Mar 20, 2015 12:22 pm

No problem. If he writes a letter to the great Wahabi master in S Arabia, he will send a cheque for 1 billion dollars with no questions asked. He can then train some 72-philiacs to piece-ify the kafir who cancelled the divine "Sharia fund".

Did Swamy's letter to PM result in SBI scrapping its Shariah fund?

Did Swamy's letter to PM result in SBI scrapping its Shariah fund?

Re: Did Swamy's letter to PM result in SBI scrapping its Shariah fund?