The Enforcement Directorate has searched the premises of realty major DLF
in Gurugram as part of a money laundering investigation against real estate
firm Supertech and its promoters, official sources said today.
The central agency has recovered some documents during the action that
was carried out over the past few days, they told Press Trust of India.
The action is linked to the Enforcement Directorate investigation against
Supertech, the sources told news agency Press Trust of India.
An email sent by news agency PTI to DLF did not elicit an immediate
response. The ED had arrested Supertech promoter RK or Ram Kishor Arora in this
case in June.
It had then alleged that Mr Arora was the main controlling person of the
group who decided to “divert” crores of funds of investors and homebuyers to
various shell companies.
The money laundering case, filed under the criminal sections of the
Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), stems from as many as 26 FIRs
registered by the police departments of Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh
against Supertech Limited and its group companies on allegations of cheating
670 homebuyers for an amount of ₹ 164 crore.
The ED had said, “Huge amounts of money running into hundreds of crores
were siphoned off through Supertech Group and they failed to adhere to their
agreed obligations to provide the possession of flats to customers on time.”
It claimed that Supertech Group “siphoned off ₹ 440 crore received from
customers and homebuyers for purchasing land in Gurugram in 2013-14 at highly
inflated prices while their already promised projects in Noida were not
completed”.
A new project was launched on this newly acquired land and further
advance was collected from hundreds of homebuyers and loans were taken from
banks/NBFCs which also became NPA and were declared “fraud” by banks, it
alleged.
Supertech Ltd, which was formed in 1988, has so far delivered around
80,000 apartments, mainly in the Delhi-NCR market. The company is currently
developing around 25 projects across National Capital Region (NCR). It is yet
to give possession to more than 20,000 customers.
The company has been in crisis since last year.
In August 2022, Supertech suffered a big setback when its nearly
100-metre-tall twin towers – Apex and Ceyane – located on Noida Expressway were
demolished as per a Supreme Court order that found their construction within
Emerald Court premises in violation of norms.
More than 3,700 kgs of explosives were used to demolish the two towers.
Arora had then said that the company incurred a loss of about ₹ 500
crore, including construction and interest costs, because of the demolition of
its twin towers in Noida.
The company suffered another blow last year when the Delhi bench of the
National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in March had ordered to initiate the
insolvency proceedings against Supertech Ltd over a petition filed by the Union
Bank of India for non-payment of dues of around ₹ 432 crore.
However, this was challenged by Mr Arora before the NCLAT.
PTI
