In an official statement
issued to the media on October 8, 2017, the company said that the Income Tax
Department had visited certain facilities of JBM Group a couple of days back. “This
has resulted in media speculation with emergence of many versions of news,
creating confusion and agony among our stakeholders,” the company said.
The company maintained that
the officials from I-T department had visited some facilities of JBM Group for
inspection. “The JBM Group staff cooperated fully with the income tax
officials. The reported matter is under investigation and as a responsible
corporate entity we are providing all required information to government
authorities,” the statement said.
The JBM Group is controlled by
SK Arya and his son Nishant Arya. The latter has spearheaded the group’s foray
into the commercial vehicles segment a year of so ago. The company in the
statement noted that the media reports had wrongly suggested that cash and gold
have been recovered from Chairman’s house. “The fact is nothing has been
recovered from the house and office of Mr. S.K. Arya, Chairman of JBM Group,”
the company noted.
“Media reports suggest I-T
officials visited 60 offices of JBM Group in Delhi NCR: The fact is that JBM
Group does not have these many offices in the region. As it looks, offices of
other companies might have also been inspected but media reported all offices
to be JBM’s,” the statement read.
“From the aforementioned, it
is clear that the media should have exercised restraint and established the
veracity of the reported content. The wrong reporting has caused serious damage
to our reputation and it will take a long time for us to restore the trust of
our stakeholders. We request you to kindly cover our statement in your esteemed
publication / channel to help us restore our goodwill,” the release from the
company noted.
The US $ 1.2 billion JBM Group
has a diversified presence in automotive, engineering and design services,
renewable energy and education sectors. It has 35 manufacturing plants and four
engineering and design centres across 18 locations globally. JBM Group is primarily a tier- 1 supplier to
the automotive OEM industry and caters services to esteemed clients that
include Ashok Leyland, Bajaj Auto Ltd, Fiat, Ford, General Motors Corporation,
Honda, Hero, JCB, Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki, Renault, Nissan, TATA, Toyota, TVS,
Volvo-Eicher, Volkswagen and many more.
The Group has alliances with
more than 20 renowned companies globally and the associations include Arcelor
Mittal, Cornaglia, Dassault Systems, JFE Steel Corporation, Magnetto (CLN
Group), Ogihara, Sumitomo and many more.
Last year, Motown India had
reported that JBM Solaris, a joint venture between JBM Group and Solaris Bus
& Coach S.A. will invest Rs. 300 crore towards engineering, design and
development, manufacturing, supply chain development and other focus areas. At
the Auto Expo held in Greater Noida early 2016, the company had unveiled the
100pc electric bus Ecolife.