The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday filed a prosecution complaint (chargesheet) against chairman of Omkar Realtors and Developers Kamal Kishore Gupta, managing director Babulal Varma, actor and producer Sachin Joshi and others in the alleged Yes Bank loan fraud case of ₹410 crore.
The chargesheet was filed before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court after an FIR was registered on March 7, 2020 at Aurangabad under Sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 406 (punishment for criminal breach of trust) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.
Conducts raids
On January 27, the Central agency arrested Mr. Varma and Mr. Gupta a day after conducting raids on 10 residential and official properties of Omkar Realtors and Developers. The ED had seized several incriminating documents and digital evidence during the raid.
According to the ED, Omkar Realtors and Developers Private Limited and its directors bought a firm, Surana Construction, which had the Slum Rehabilitation Authority’s (SRA) rights for redevelopment of Anand Nagar SRA Cooperative Housing Society, Wadala. However, Omkar Group and its promoters did not pay dues to the seller, mortgaged future floor space index (FSI) of the project, and took huge amounts of loan.
The agency said investigation revealed that ₹410 crore loans were diverted and not used for intended purposes. “No work of the SRA building was undertaken. The requisite rules and procedures under SRA were ignored and documents relating to names of slum dwellers were forged to claim more FSI for mortgaging it with banks for taking loans,” the ED mentions.
Mr. Joshi was arrested on February 15 2021 and explanations by him reveal, “funds were received by him and his companies from various companies of Omkar Group. Part funds were shown as investment and part of them are shown as received against rendering of services. With respect to funds received as investment, Mr. Joshi said the same were towards development of land near Pune,” the ED claims.
The agency has contended that the term sheet of investment is simply used to disguise the real intention of diversion of funds received from Omkar Group of companies and park these funds on behalf of promoters of Omkar Group. It can be seen that any prudent business transaction would involve definite black and white agreement about investment/utilisation of such huge funds.
