WHILE SIGNBOARDS of the Enforcement Directorate stay on the stretch resulting in the two.5 acre farmhouse in South Delhi’s Rajokri, which served because the probe company’s Gurugram zonal workplace for round three years, the property is now sealed. A hand-written discover pasted on a wall on the gate informs guests that the workplace has shifted to an deal with close to Sahara Mall on M G Street, Gurugram.
Round two months in the past, the company packed up and moved out of the farmhouse, ending a peculiar authorized state of affairs — that of a major property value over Rs 100 crore getting used as a zonal workplace and coaching centre by the company investigating allegations of economic fraud by the corporate that owned it.
The Indian Categorical had reported on October 4, 2024 that even because the ED was occupying this “confiscated” property, its attachment and confiscation had been challenged in courtroom by the Union Financial institution of India, which had listed the property as “proceeds of crime”. Moreover utilizing the spacious bedrooms as workplace areas for its senior officers, the ED had additionally arrange a big coaching unit in the lounge and constructed makeshift lock-ups. The indoor swimming pool was getting used as a godown for discarded furnishings. In all, round 100 employees members labored from the premises for shut to a few years.
ED officers had then advised The Indian Categorical that the federal government could shortly be relocating their workplaces to a Gurugram deal with however that their coaching centre would stay on the Rajokri farmhouse. That plan evidently modified with the company deciding to vacate all the plush premises.
Seized automobiles lined up at ED’s Rajokri farmhouse workplace. (Categorical photograph by Ritu Sarin)
The farmhouse initially belonged to Atul Bansal, a realtor who has since handed away. In 2012, Bansal mortgaged it, together with different property, with a consortium of banks for Rs 111 crore. This farmhouse, specifically, was mortgaged with the Union Financial institution of India by one of many group firms, Knowledge Realtors. Following a mortgage default, the financial institution took possession of the property in 2017.
The state of affairs modified two years later, with the financial institution realising that the ED had first connected and later bought confiscation orders for a similar property since there have been cash laundering allegations towards Knowledge Realtors.
On the time the ED workplace was situated there, the financial institution’s legal professionals had advised The Indian Categorical that the very objective of the case was defeated with the ED neither auctioning the farmhouse nor handing it over to the financial institution.
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Now that the ED workplace has moved out — though the farmhouse has not been surrendered but — senior officers of the company mentioned, “The Rajokri property has been confiscated free from all encumbrances underneath Part 8(7) of the Prevention of Cash Laundering Act (PMLA) and now must be bought via an public sale. The whole matter can be earlier than the courts.”
On provisions underneath which they’d used the property for round three years, the ED officers cited Part 9 of the PMLA to say that such “confiscated properties” stay “vested with the central authorities”, and {that a} Gazette notification of the Ministry of Finance dated September 12, 2023 gave powers to ED officers of the rank of Particular Administrators to behave as “Administers” and “obtain, handle and dispose off the property confiscated…”
Union Financial institution of India’s lawyer Alok Kumar advised The Indian Categorical that their declare for the mortgaged farmhouse has already been filed in courts. “For the financial institution, which has the primary declare to the property, there’s nothing to do however to attend for the judgment from the PMLA courtroom in Panchkula. This matter has been going through authorized problem for over six years, and whether or not the ED bodily occupies the property or not, the confiscation survives,” he mentioned.
By the way, the ED has been utilizing two different confiscated properties as workplace area and senior company officers mentioned there was no fast plan to vacate them. One of many “repurposed” properties is in Ranchi, close to the airport, and the opposite in Mumbai’s Worli space.
