New Delhi: Silly Souls, the controversial Goa restaurant and bar located at a private home at Assagao in Goa, has a food license issued by the state Directorate of Food and Drugs Administration to a company controlled by Union Minister Smriti Irani’s husband and their children, revealed RTI documents, according to The Wire.
Earlier, Congress had alleged that the senior BJP leader and her daughter had links with the upmarket restaurant Silly Souls Cafe and Bar in Goa following which Irani filed a defamation suit against the Congress leaders for allegedly making baseless and false accusations against her and her 18-year-old daughter.
In a sworn affidavit submitted to the Delhi high court last month, Irani and her daughter stated that had no connection to the Silly Souls Cafe and Bar at House 452, Bouta Waddo, Assagao in Goa.
Union woman and child development minister Irani faced flak after the Goa excise commissioner issued a notice in July alleging the liquor license of Silly Souls Cafe and Bar had been renewed illegally.
An RTI response from the Goa government to advocate Aires Rodrigues – who had earlier obtained the information that the bar’s excise license was illegally renewed – has revealed that the Directorate of Food and Drugs Administration’s license to Silly Souls was issued in the name of Eightall Food and Beverages Limited Liability Partnership, the very company in which two firms controlled by Smriti Irani’s husband and family, own a 75% stake.
The application, complete with company board resolutions, was made online and approved after a site visit on June 26, 2021, the news website reported.
On July 23, 2021, Eightall Food and Beverage was issued licence number 10621001000195 by the Goan government’s FDA directorate in compliance with the FSS Act.