The 177-page charge-sheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate against Lalit Goyal, the brother-in-law of BJP leader Sudhanshu Mittal, accuses him, his family and associates in the Ireo group of companies, of serial acts of cheating investors and home-buyers, and siphoning off funds received from them to offshore entities in flagrant violation of extant laws, including the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. Last week, Mittal was denied bail in the case.
The charge-sheet filed before the Special Judge of the Special Court for offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, accuses Goyal and other accused persons of being “directly and indirectly” involved in diversion of funds overseas which resulted in some companies of the group turning insolvent, and construction projects either being abandoned or inordinately delayed. In all, Goyal and his associates are accused of having received Rs 8,300 crore by way of FDI from Ireo Fund, Mauritius and in turn transferred Rs 1,777.48 crore out of India under the cover of buy-back of shares and other instruments.
While Mittal, a BJP leader once considered very close to deceased leader Pramod Mahajan, has denied any links with Ireo and his brother-in-law, his name had featured in taped conversations found by authorities where he was alleged to have tried to get the charges against Goyal diluted by attempting to influence a former Special Judge dealing with the case who was later arrested on charges of corruption.
Goyal, a mid-level executive with companies such as Pergo AB and Wimco until about two decades ago, had emerged a couple of years before Mahajan’s murder as a major player in Gurgaon’s real estate market, and then saw a meteoric rise. While the source of Ireo’s funding remained a mystery, the company quickly launched a series of ambitious projects. But it ran into trouble a few years after Mahajan’s death when it failed to deliver on many of its commitments. This, according to ED, had resulted in as many as 30 criminal complaints being lodged against Goyal and his associates in Haryana, Punjab and Delhi.
The ED chargesheet says that Goyal, in collusion with key managerial persons, “placed customer receipts out of India by layering inter-company interest-free transactions in the form of interest-free loans, advances and other payments and finally integrated the same to its own offshore trust and companies, whose ultimate beneficiary is also Lalit Goyal and his family.”
Using a complex web of companies based in Mauritius and Cyprus, Goyal is accused of investing in Ireo group companies in India for the purchase of land and transfer of development rights. Funds collected against projects from investors and home-buyers were sent overseas leaving the Indian entities short of funds and leading to some such as Ireo Fiveriver Private Limited and Puma Realtors Private Limited turning insolvent.
The charge-sheet says that analysis of digital records showed that Goyal, despite claiming not to possess any overseas assets, owned shares worth more than US $3.2 million in foreign entities, including one in Bermuda, was a shareholder in a Mauritius-registered company named Park Chinois.
It is further alleged that after being enlarged on bail on medical grounds by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Goyal had tried to influence the investigation by colluding with the designated judge overseeing the case and was named in the FIR registered against the judge. The charge-sheet says Goyal has “been involved in the destruction of evidence”.