Puri bought Rs 1-crore flat for grandparents

Investigators of the R400-crore Citibank scam have zeroed in on an apartment in a high-end residential complex in Haridwar which Shivraj Puri had allegedly purchased at the cost of R1crore in September last.

Investigators of the Rs 400-crore Citibank scam have zeroed in on an apartment in a high-end residential complex in Haridwar which Shivraj Puri had allegedly purchased at the cost of R1crore in September last.

HT Image

According to the police, the residential project — Haridwar Greens — is being developed by Arrow Infra Limited, a Hero Group subsidiary that had invested R25 crore through Hero Corporate Services Limited AVP Sanjay Gupta into Puri's fake scheme.

Gupta had allegedly received a commission of R20 crore from Puri for bringing in the investment from Hero Group entities and other HNIs to the tune of about R250 crore.

The investigators said Puri had purchased this apartment for his maternal grandparents — Premnath, 92, and Sheila Premnath, 87 — in whose names the accused had opened a joint account for masterminding the scam.

Although Puri has been claiming that he had lost R300 crore in the share market, the police have not been able to conclusively prove the claim.

Therefore, the police are also trying to find out whether Puri had invested in other real estate projects too.

Police officials on Wednesday disclosed in the court of chief judicial magistrate DN Bhardwaj that in addition to

Rs 1-crore apartment in Haridwar, Puri also had hid Rs 20 lakh cash in the house of his friend Pankaj in Noida where his iPad was also told to be lying.