by THO
MUMBAI: Businessman Gautam Thapar-owned Avantha Group’s assets worth more than ₹678 crore has been attached by the Enforcement Directorate in a ₹2,435 crore-worth loan fraud case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The immovable assets, including land, were attached in Maharashtra, Haryana, and Uttarakhand.
The ED case is based on the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)’s First Information Report, registered on a complaint from a consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI).
It was alleged that on August 19, 2019, an accused firm, CG Power and Industrial Solutions Limited, had allegedly made disclosures under Regulation 30 of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015 to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and National Stock Exchange (NSE) pertaining to certain findings that had a potential impact on the company’s financial condition.
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The firm’s disclosure allegedly revealed that its assets and liabilities had been significantly understated, advances to related parties and unrelated parties were understated and that the firm was made a co-borrower and/or guarantor to facilitate the processing of loans that were immediately diverted out of the firm without due authorization, agency sources said.
The firm’s disclosure was taken note of by its lender banks and on the basis of a complaint from the SBI, the CBI registered a case on June 22, 2021, under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act against CG Power and Industrial Solution Limited, Thapar, KN Neelkanth, Madhav Acharya, B Hariharan, O Goswami and unknown public servant/s and private person/s, accusing them of involvement in orchestrating a fraud on the consortium of banks worth ₹2,435 crore.
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The agency had earlier made two provisional attachments in the case, whose estimated worth was around ₹14.43 crore. Acharya, in a key managerial role, was arrested in January this year and a chargesheet was submitted against him and others for their alleged involvement in money-laundering in the case.
ED’s probe detected the alleged diversion of funds worth ₹1,307.06 crore to Avantha Group’s firms, through accessing loans and thereafter proceeds from them. “The funds paid to the Avantha Group companies remained outstanding and therefore, the ED has provisionally attached the properties of companies of Avantha Group with an estimated worth of ₹678.48 crore,” an ED source said.
