‘₹11K-cr HDIL assets mortgaged with PMC Bank’

Properties worth ₹11,102.57 crore belonging to the Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) group have been, partly or fully, mortgaged with the fraud-hit

Properties worth ₹11,102.57 crore belonging to the Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) group have been, partly or fully, mortgaged with the fraud-hit Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank, HDIL promoter Sarang Wadhawan has claimed in an affidavit filed in Bombay high court (HC) on Wednesday.

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Claiming that none of the group companies hold any property abroad, Wadhawan has disclosed a list of 69 immovable and 33 movable properties belonging either to HDIL and 26 of its subsidiaries.

Despite repeated attempts, Wadhawan’s lawyer was unavailable for a comment .

The affidavit also disclosed that the realty group has other assets worth ₹6,360.28 crore mortgaged with other banks and financial institutions and yet other unencumbered properties worth ₹2,435.70 crore – assuring that it had enough assets to repay loans taken from the multi-state scheduled co-operative bank having 137 branches in seven states.

The affidavit has been filed pursuant to the earlier order of the HC in a public interest litigation filed by advocate Sarosh Damania, seeking directions for the expeditious disposal of HDIL group assets and properties attached by the economic offences wing of Mumbai Police and repayment to the depositors of PMC Bank at earliest.

According to Wadhawan’s counsel, advocate Anoop Patil, normal court proceedings will take years to refund the dues of depositors and therefore directions were required for speedy disposal of the attached assets and properties. On Patil’s request, the court had earlier directed HDIL promoters Sarang and Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan to submit list of their assets with specific remarks as to whether those were encumbered or not.

Accordingly Wadhawan has filed the affidavit disclosing the list of the group’s assets and also stating that they had no objection for selling all the group properties mortgaged with PMC Bank, in order to recover the dues payable by them to the fraud-hit bank. Wadhawan has also promised to extend all co-operation for monetising the assets. “The question of sale of unencumbered assets would only arise if there is shortfall after sale of encumbered assets,” his affidavit adds.

Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday informed the division bench of Justice Ranjit More and Justice Surendra Tavade that the Central agency has identified HDIL properties for attachment, but has not provisionally attached them in order to allow the fraud-hit bank to speedily recover its dues from the realty firm and repay its depositors.

Advocate Hiten Venegaonkar informed the bench that attachment and recovery under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2005 will be a lengthy procedure. “It may take decades,” said the bench, agreeing with the ED counsel. “We want that the interest of the depositors is properly protected,” the bench added.

EOW has on September 30, 2019 registered an offence in connection with the purported fraud at the multi-state scheduled cooperative bank, accusing certain persons at the helm of affairs at the PMC Bank illegally extended huge loans to HDIL and its group companies. According to RBI, PMC bank had masked problematic 44 loan accounts involving advances to the tune of ₹7,457.49 crore, including HDIL loan accounts, by tampering with its core banking system, and the accounts were accessible only to limited staff members. The bank had created 21,049 fictitious accounts in order to ensure its master data tallies with the loan disbursals of ₹7,457.49 crore, RBI has stated in an affidavit filed in response to other PMC Bank-related petitions before the HC.