The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Roop Kumar Bansal, a director of the Gurugram-based realty company M3M, in a money laundering case. Bansal was taken into custody on Thursday under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), as confirmed by officials on Friday.
Earlier, on June 1, the ED conducted raids in Delhi and Gurugram targeting the M3M group, its directors, and IREO, another real estate group. In a press statement, the ED alleged that the owners, controllers, and promoters of the M3M Group intentionally evaded investigations during the raids, which marked a significant turn in the case.
M3M directors filed a petition
Following the searches, M3M directors, including Bansal, reportedly filed a petition in the Delhi High Court seeking to dismiss the ED case and the summons issued to them. They claimed their innocence and denied any involvement in wrongdoing.
According to a report by PTI, the ED has been investigating the IREO group for several years on charges of diverting, siphoning, and misappropriating funds of investors and customers. It was subsequently discovered that substantial amounts of money, totaling hundreds of crores, were also siphoned off through the M3M Group.
M3M group received about Rs 400 crore from IREO Group
The ED alleged that one of the transactions involved the M3M group receiving approximately Rs 400 crore from the IREO Group through multiple layers of shell companies. These transactions were falsely recorded in the books of IREO as payments for development rights, despite the land being owned by the M3M group, with a market value of around Rs 4 crore.
The Delhi High Court has declined to intervene in the arrest of M3M directors by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case.
The recent decision by the Delhi High Court declined to intervene in the arrest of M3M directors, Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal, who are associated with a Gurugram-based realty group. The arrest was made in connection with a money laundering investigation linked to a bribery case involving a former judge.
Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials arrested the Bansal brothers on June 14 and they were subsequently remanded into five-day custody by a special court in Panchkula, Haryana.
The Bansal brothers argued that their custody amounted to unlawful detention and was an attempt to circumvent the Delhi High Court’s previous orders that provided them protection against coercive action in another money laundering case.
The counsel representing the Bansals further contended that the High Court was not informed about the existence of the other pending case against them and that they had not been served with any summons.
After examining the case, Justice Jasmeet Singh of the vacation bench noted that the order of remand had been issued by the competent court in Panchkula, and therefore, the appropriate course of action for the Bansal brothers was to approach the High Court of Punjab and Haryana.
The Court stated that any order passed by the Delhi High Court after the order of remand had been issued by the Panchkula Court would be deemed improper.
Regarding the issue of whether the petitioners were served with summons on June 13, 2023, in ECIR No. 17/2023, the Court emphasized that it could only be ascertained once the respondent’s counter-affidavit was presented. The Court also acknowledged that the submission concerning the information provided to the Court on June 9, 2023, regarding the pendency of FIR 0006/2023 dated April 17, 2023, and the second ECIR being 17/2023, would be relevant while challenging the order of remand passed by the Panchkula court on June 9, 2023.
Consequently, the Court dismissed the applications filed by the Bansals but issued notices on the main plea and scheduled the case for further consideration on July 7.
The Bansal brothers were initially arrested by the Haryana Police’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in connection with an FIR registered earlier this year against former Special Judge CBI/ED, Sudhir Parmar. The ED had received information alleging that Parmar had shown favoritism towards the accused in a money laundering case involving the real estate firm IREO. The accused in the case included Lalit Goel, the owner of IREO, along with Roop Kumar Bansal and Basant Bansal.
Following the registration of the case by the ACB, the Punjab and Haryana High Court suspended Parmar from his position.
During the legal proceedings, the Bansals were represented by Senior Advocates Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, N. Hariharan, and Mohit Mathur, along with a team of advocates. Additional Solicitor General (ASG) SV Raju, accompanied by advocates Vivek Hunna and Hashain Khawjha, represented the ED. The Central government was represented by Central Government Standing Counsel (CGSC) Rakesh Kumar and Advocate Sunil.
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