PMLA court closes case against deceased ex-IL&FS chairman

Mumbai: The special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court has closed the money laundering proceedings against former chairman of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS), Ravi Parthasarathy, after the court was informed about his death

Mumbai: The special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court has closed the money laundering proceedings against former chairman of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS), Ravi Parthasarathy, after the court was informed about his death. However, the enforcement directorate (ED) strenuously opposed the plea for declaring the case against him to be abated.

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Parthasarathy’s lawyer on Monday informed the court about his death in April this year and pleaded to drop the proceedings against him. The court had then sought a reply from the ED.

The ED had opposed the plea claiming that the proceedings against Parthasarathy could not be dropped in view of the charge of criminal conspiracy related to the proceeds of crime levelled against him and others, and in view of the glaring facts showing how the proceeds were generated, layered, integrated in regular business transactions.

The court however, discarded the ED’s objection, observing that “the simple answer from the ED was expected whether the trial should continue by abating it to the extent of the deceased accused, but the ED contended that said application has to be rejected.”

The court rejected ED’s contention and closed the proceedings against Parthasarathy.

The ED had launched the probe on the basis of the predicate offence registered by the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Delhi police, accusing the IL&FS Group and its managing committee of cheating and forgery.

The group, an Indian infrastructure development and finance company, was founded in 1987 with equity from the Central Bank of India, Unit Trust of India and Housing Development Finance Corporation to fund infrastructure projects.

According to the ED, the firm’s primary mandate was catalysing the development of innovative, world class infrastructure in the country. The ED had, however, found that IL&FS Transportation Networks (ITNL) and its subsidiary, IL&FS Rail Ltd, had assigned multiple works to various bogus companies using fake invoices.

The agency also claimed to have found that the total debt of IL&FS owing to arbitrary sanctioning of loan and credit facilities — including routing of funds through third parties and group companies of borrowing companies — by the IL&FS management was over ₹91,000 crore.

During the probe, the ED had attached properties, including a ₹48-crore flat at Old Prabhadevi Road and a ₹2-crore property at Brussels in Belgium, which were in the name of Ravi Parthasarathy and his wife Vishpala.