Silver Bullion For India?

chasvoice.blogspot.ca/2012/07/bring-home...rom-sunken-ship.html



CPI general secretary S Sudhakar Reddy has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to demand the return of the retrieved silver to India, its "rightful owner".


In a letter to the PM on July 23, Reddy asked, "The silver that was recovered from the SS Gairsoppa was carrying the riches to England from India in 1941 when a Nazi torpedo struck. Hence how can Britain be the rightful owner?"

HERES WHAT ONE INTERESTED PARTY HAD TO SAY:

India does not have a realistic chance of getting the silver under the laws of salvage, but then India has a history of finagling the laws to grab wealth when they can. When my ancestors fled Portugal to Shanghai following the failed attempt to assassinate King José I in 1758 (our family had nothing to do with it, but wound up in the torture dungeons until "cleared") most of the family fortune was deposited in a bank in India during a prolonged stay while waiting to arrange the next voyage on to China. But the ancestor who went to China was in a shipwreck and while he survived, he lost his papers including those from the bank in India, which thereafter refused to release the funds and transfer to the bank in Shangai. About 15 years ago, India passed a law to allow descendants of abandoned deposits to reclaim them and we hired a lawyer to petition for the funds. But when the Indian government realized the scope of the abandoned deposits plus accrued interest they quickly changed the law back, so while it makes for an interesting story, the lawyers say we will never see a rupee of the money short of outright invasion, and I am just not in the mood right now!