In last letter to Coffee Day family, Siddhartha speaks about harassment by IT dept: Full text here
Bengaluru, July 30: V G Siddhartha, the founder of Cafe Coffee Day, who has been missing since Monday night hinted about harassment by Income Tax officials.
In his last letter to the Board of Directors and the Coffee Day Family, he said that there was a lot of harassment from the previous DG Income Tax.
Here is the full text of the letter:
To our Board of Directors and Coffee day family
After
37
years,
with
strong
commitment
to
hard
work,
having
directly
created
30,000
jobs
in
our
companies
and
their
subsidiaries,
as
well
as
another
20,000
jobs
in
technology
company
where
I
have
been
a
large
shareholder
since
its
founding.
I
have
failed
to
create
the
right
profitable
business
model
despite
my
best
efforts.
I
would
like
to
say
I
gave
it
my
all.
I
am
sorry
to
let
down
all
the
people
that
put
their
trust
in
me.
I fought for a long time but today I gave up as I could not take any more pressure from one of the private equity partners forcing me to buy back shares, a transaction I had partially completed six months ago by borrowing a large sum of money from a friend.
Tremendous pressure from other lenders lead to me succumbing to the situation. There was a lot of harassment from the previous DG income tax in the form of attaching our shares on two separate occasions to block our Mindtree deal and then taking position of our Coffee Day shares, although the revised returns have been filed by us. This was very unfair and has led to a serious liquidity crunch.
I
sincerely
request
each
of
you
to
be
strong
and
to
continue
running
these
businesses
with
a
new
management.
I
am
solely
responsible
for
all
mistakes.
Each
financial
transaction
is
my
responsibility.
My
team,
auditors
and
senior
management
are
totally
unaware
of
all
my
transactions.
The
law
should
hold
me
and
only
me
accountable,
as
I
have
withheld
this
information
from
everybody
including
my
family.
My
intention
was
never
to
cheat
or
mislead
anybody.
I
have
failed
as
an
entrepreneur.
This
is
my
sincere
submission.
I
hope
someday
you
will
understand,
forgive
and
pardon
me.
I have enclosed a list of our assets and tentative value of each asset. As seen below our assets outweigh our liabilities and can help repay everybody.
Regards,
VG
Siddhartha.