The city police on Sunday claimed their investigations had revealed that mining baron and former Minister G. Janardhana Reddy had not bribed Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials as was being alleged.
Syed Ahmed Fareed of Ambidant Marketing, who is accused of cheating thousands of customers in a potential Ponzi scheme, his statement to the police had reportedly said he had paid Mr. Reddy ₹20 crore — ₹2 crore in cash and 57 kg gold in bullion worth ₹18 crore — in return for help in getting an ED probe against his firm closed.
Addressing the media on November 7, Bengaluru Police Commissioner T. Suneel Kumar said while Mr. Fareed had stated so, only an interrogation of Mr. Reddy would establish whether or not he had bribed ED officials.
Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime), Bengaluru, Alok Kumar, told reporters on Sunday that investigations had revealed that Mr. Reddy had hatched a criminal conspiracy to swindle ₹20 crore from the deposits collected by Ambidant by misusing the name of the ED.
Officials claimed that though Mr. Reddy told Mr. Fareed that he would bribe ED officials to get the probe against Ambidant closed and struck a deal with the businessman, he did not attempt any such thing.
Provoked by the bribery allegation, the ED issued a press statement on Friday detailing its action against Mr. Fareed and Ambidant Marketing. The ED said it had booked Mr. Fareed for FEMA violations on forex trade worth ₹4.2 crore and the case was adjudicated and a penalty of ₹1.83 crore was collected from him. Senior ED officials wondered as to why a person would give a bribe of ₹20 crore to close a case where the illegality was of the tune of ₹4.2 crore.
The ED also said they had written to the Securities and Exchange Board of India and the Reserve Bank of India alerting them about a potential Ponzi scheme, going beyond their brief.
ED registers protest against police statements
The Enforcement Directorate has written to Bengaluru Police Commissioner T. Suneel Kumar protesting against the statements of the city police that “maligned the public image of the agency”.
The Hindu has a copy of the two-page letter by Joint Director, ED, Bengaluru, Raman Gupta written on November 9.
“It is a matter of great concern that the press note issued by the office of the Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru, on November 7 ... mentions about this directorate and that the accused sought support regarding ED cases. This not only maligned the public image of this agency but also lead to avoidable media speculations in the case. Surprisingly, before putting out uncorroborated information in the public domain, no effort was made by the State police to consult or verify the facts with this directorate,” the letter states.
The ED has asked the city police to expeditiously furnish them with details of all the cases registered against Ambidant Marketing Pvt. Ltd. to examine the matter from the point of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
