A four-member team of officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) questioned four accused in the Emaar Properties case in Chanchalguda prison here on Tuesday including the suspended IAS officer B.P. Acharya. Koneru Rajendra Prasad, V. Venkata Vijay Raghav and N. Sunil Reddy were the others.
Violations
The ED officials questioned the accused separately by probing them with supplementary questions in addition to the prepared questionnaires they were carrying.
These questions centred around the deals between the Government and Emaar Properties and between Emaar Properties and MGF from the point of view of violations under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Focus of the questioning was about the alleged misappropriation of Rs. 138 crore collected by the promoters and their marketers by selling the plots at inflated rates to customers including politicians, professionals, film actors and industrialists.
PMLA violation
The ED is suspecting that a sizeable share of the Rs. 138 crore had reached overseas countries where the accused had their business interests in violation of the PMLA.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probing the main case alleged in its charge-sheet that the A.P. Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) did not get a single rupee from sale of villas and apartments in the Emaar Hills Township at Nanakramguda here, though the APIIC and Emaar Properties had entered into an agreement to share profits from the transactions in the ratio of 26:74.
Dilution of stake
To mobilise investments, Emaar had inducted MGF into the joint venture through an internal agreement and the induction of Stylish Homes to market the villas and apartments resulted in dilution of the stake of APIIC to 6.5 per cent. Director of a special purpose vehicle Mr. Koneru Prasad and Stylish Homes had connived to misappropriate Rs. 138 crore from the transactions, it was alleged.
About Rs. 50 crore of the misappropriated amount had allegedly reached a firm belonging to Mr. Sunil Reddy, a relative of YSR Congress president Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, who is in judicial remand now in the disproportionate assets case. The amount was withdrawn in spells but it was not known where it had gone, the CBI had earlier informed the court.
