After the arrest of Lalit Goyal, the managing director of real estate development company IREO and brother-in-law of BJP leader Sudhanshu Mittal on Tuesday, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is likely to interrogate more persons. Further arrests are also likely.

Goyal has been arrested in a money laundering case. The case against Goyal is connected to a corruption investigation against suspended Haryana judicial officer, Sudhir Parmar. The complaint against Parmar was registered by the Haryana anti-corruption bureau (ACB) under the Prevention of Corruption Act, and had named both Goyal and Sudhanshu Mittal.

Goyal was initially arrested in 2021 by the ED in a multi-crore property scam but was granted bail by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in April 2022. Now he has been named as an accused by the Central Bureau of Investigation and ED, both in the cases pending before PMLA courts and the special CBI court that was once presided over by the now accused Parmar.  Parmar was a judge at CBI court in Panchkula, and also a special judge under the PMLA, Panchkula.

Goyal’s arrest & ED raids on realtors linked to Sudhanshu Mittal

Notably more than a month before Goyals’ arrest The Statesman in its news report on May 30, had mentioned that the ED raids on realtors, linked to BJP leader Sudhanshu Mittal, were likely to bring trouble for him. According to an audio recording which was part of the investigation, a former CBI Judge Sudhir Parmar, who is facing corruption charges, had claimed to have met Mittal and assured him of several concessions in the course of judicial proceedings to Goyal.

Earlier, on June 1, seven offices of real estate developers IREO Group linked to Mittal through his brother-in-law, and M3M Group in Gurugram and Delhi were raided by the ED for siphoning off funds received from the investors through shell companies.

During the raids, 17 high-end luxury vehicles including a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, a Land Rover, a Rolls Royce, a Bentley, and a Mercedes Maybach of cumulative worth Rs 60 crore, jewellry worth Rs5.75 crore, cash to the tune of Rs 15 lakh and various other incriminating documents and books of accounts were seized.

The ED has been investigating IREO Group for diverting funds from investors on the basis of multiple first information reports (FIRs) registered against the group. The investigations showed huge amounts of money running into hundreds of crores were siphoned off through the M3M group also, and that the two companies had acted together.

Judge Sudhir Parmar becomes party, booked, and suspended

Parmar, who was an additional district and sessions rank judge, was presiding over the trial of several ED and CBI cases involving realtors, retired bureaucrats, and politicians. He is alleged to have favoured the realtors of which the audio recording became part of the investigation.

Following the investigations, on April 17 an FIR was registered by ACB, and Parmar was booked. On April 27 he was suspended, accused of alleged favouritism in his treatment of real estate developers Roop Bansal and his brother Basant Bansal of M3M and Lalit Goyal of IREO Group, as per the ACB’s FIR.

As per the FIR, in an audio recording, Sudhir Parmar claimed and it came to light in his conversation with another person that he did not let Roop Bansal become an accused in ED cases.