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M3M India director’s brother, nephew not yet implicated by ED in PMLA scheduled offences: Delhi HC
The Delhi HC bench in its June 9 orders said that ED has not yet been able to implicate the duo in any of the scheduled offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Roop Bansal, arrested on June 8 by the ED, was on June 9 produced before a special PMLA court in Panchkula that granted his custody to the ED for seven days.
A vacation bench of Delhi High Court which on June 9 granted interim protection from arrest to Basant Bansal, the brother of director of real estate development company, M3M India Pvt Ltd, Roop Kumar Bansal, and Roop’s nephew, Pankaj Bansal held that both Basant and Pankaj have not been named in the enforcement case information report (ECIR) by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The HC bench in its June 9 orders said that ED has not yet been able to implicate the duo in any of the scheduled offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Roop Bansal, arrested on June 8 by the ED, was on June 9 produced before a special PMLA court in Panchkula that granted his custody to the ED for seven days. Following Roop Bansal’s arrest, Basant and Pankaj had on June 9 petitioned the Delhi high court seeking anticipatory bails. In separate petitions filed before the HC, the father son duo pleaded that they apprehended imminent arrest in light of the events of the last few days, culminating in the “unlawful and illegal” arrest of their relative Roop Bansal.
Delhi HC vacation judge Justice Chandra Dhari Singh in his orders said that the primary accused in the matter, Lalit Goyal, the promoter of IREO Group, has already been granted regular bail in the matter on April 24, 2022, and the same has not been challenged by the ED. Besides, the ED’s counsel has sought one week time to file a status report and relevant document to support their case.
Granting interim protection to father son duo till July 5, the HC judge said that the fact that the petitioners have not been named in the ECIR and that the respondent has not yet been able to implicate them in any of the PMLA scheduled offences and the admitted fact that they have not even been summoned by the ED in present case, this court is of the considered opinion that in the interest of justice they may be granted interim protection till the next date of hearing.
The HC also said the duo shall surrender passports to the investigating officer and under no circumstances leave India without prior permission of the court, cooperate in investigations, remain present before the jurisdictional police station on second and fourth Saturday of every month for two months or till filing of the final report, drop a PIN on the Google map to ensure that their location is available to the investigating officer.
The PMLA investigations were initiated based on multiple FIRs registered against the IREO group. The investigations done by the ED, however, revealed that a huge amount of money running in hundreds of crores was siphoned off through M3M group also, ED officials said.
The ED had on June 1 carried out search operations at offices IREO and M3M for allegedly siphoning funds of home buyers and others in Gurugram and Delhi, under the PMLA provisions. Seventeen high-end luxury vehicles Ferrari, Lamborghini, Land Rover, Rolls Royce, Bentley and Mercedes-Maybach having acquisition value of about ₹60 crore, jewelry worth ₹5.75 crore, ₹15 lakh cash and various incriminating documents, digital evidence and books of accounts were seized during the search operation.
“ED Investigations showed that in one of the transactions, M3M group received about ₹400 crore from IREO group through several shell companies in multiple layers. The transactions were shown in books of IREO as payments towards development rights. The land was owned by M3M group, and the market value of the land was around ₹4 crore. M3M group initially sold the development rights of the said land to five shell companies for a payment of ₹10 crore. It was claimed that the five companies were unrelated companies,” an ED statement said.
The ED said that investigations showed that the five shell companies were operated by M3M Group and immediately sold the development rights of the same land to IREO Group for about ₹400 crore. After receiving the amount of ₹400 crore from IREO Group, these five shell companies transferred the said amounts immediately to M3M Group through multiple shell companies and layers. All the shell companies were owned and operated by M3M Group under the directions of its promoters Basant Kumar Bansal and Roop Kumar Bansal and their family members. “In this way, IREO and M3M siphoned off about ₹400 crore money belonging to investors customers and the proceeds of crime remained with M3M Group which was used by M3M for other investments paying off liabilities. On the other hand, IREO Group did not make any efforts to develop the land and started writing off the investments every year,” an ED statement said.
