Money laundering: Kabra fails to get bail from MP high court

Sharad Kabra, the then vice-president of Zoom Developers Pvt Ltd and accused in a multi-crore money laundering case, failed to get bail from the Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh high court on Tuesday.

Sharad Kabra, the then vice-president of Zoom Developers Pvt Ltd and accused in a multi-crore money laundering case, failed to get bail from the Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh high court on Tuesday.

Kabra, who is in jail since May 2015, has applied for the bail in the high court. On Tuesday, he argued in the court through his counsel. However, the arguments remained inclusive and Kabra's counsel demanded more time to present his case.

The court has fixed August 21 as the next date of hearing.

Zoom Developers Pvt Ltd, an engineering procurement and construction company registered in Indore and operating from Mumbai, had raised Rs 2,200 crore from more than 20 banks for various projects in European countries between 2005 and 2010-11.

However, none of the projects took off and the loans were diverted through dummy firms. The company and its promoters set up more than 100 dummy companies in London, Switzerland and India for committing the multi-crore fraud.

Huge sums of money were diverted to a trust in Lichtenstein. From there, the money was transferred to dummy companies and properties were bought in and outside India in the name of Zoom Developers.

The case is considered to be one of the biggest bank loan frauds in the country. Recently, the Enforcement Directorate has attached company's 1,280 acre land worth more than Rs 1,000 crore in California under provisions of the Money Laundering Act