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Bank fraud case: Chandigarh pharma firm MD among 4 named in ED chargesheet
ED has submitted a chargehseet against four persons, including a managing director (MD) and director of a Chandigarh-based pharmaceutical manufacturing company, Parabolic Drugs Limited, who were arrested for a ₹1,626-crore bank fraud.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has submitted a chargehseet against four persons, including a managing director (MD) and director of a Chandigarh-based pharmaceutical manufacturing company, Parabolic Drugs Limited, who were arrested for a ₹1,626-crore bank fraud.
The chargesheet has been filed under Sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against accused Pranav Gupta, managing director, Vineet Gupta, director of Parabolic Drugs Ltd, their chartered accountant SK Bansal, and the company.
Advocate HPS Verma, special public prosecutor for the ED, appeared while submitting the chargesheet.
They were taken into custody by the ED on October 28, 2023, for money laundering and were sent to judicial custody in November. However, in December, the high court had ordered the release of the two directors.
The money laundering case stems from a CBI FIR in which the promoters and the pharma company were booked for allegedly defrauding a consortium of banks, led by the Central Bank of India, of ₹1,626.74 crore between 2009 and 2014.
The Guptas are also the co-founders of the Sonepat-based Ashoka University but had stepped down from their posts in 2022 after the CBI registered a case against them and the company in 2021.
Launching raids at the Ashoka University’s corporate and registered offices in Delhi and campus in Haryana’s Sonepat on October 27, 2023, the ED had conducted search operations at at least 20 premises, also covering Chandigarh and Panchkula. The searches resulted in the recovery of movable and immovable assets to the tune of ₹114 crore, digital devices and various incriminating documents.
“Vineet Gupta and Pranav Gupta were actively and directly involved in generation, layering and siphoning of proceeds of crime by way of availing bank finances by illegally inflating the value of primary security against which drawings were allowed by the bank,” investigation had found.
Under their command and control, the loan funds were diverted and fraudulently rotated through their group companies and various shell companies. The ED investigation also revealed that the Guptas and their company availed loans/financial facilities through forged documents.
Chartered accountant SK Bansal was their statutory auditor during the period of offence. He assisted the Guptas in illegally changing the loan funds from liabilities to assets by way of circuitous transactions.
Investigation says that he is also accused of intentionally concealing crucial financial facts from lending banks and also issuing false certificates for obtaining loans. The ED is looking at 20 linked companies as part of the bank-loan fraud case.
