ED attaches Mumbai building worth Rs 190 cr in case against ex-BPSL CMD

The Enforcement Directorate on Saturday said it has attached a building worth over Rs 190 crore in Mumbai as part of a money laundering probe linked to an alleged bank fraud case against former Bhushan Power and Steel Limited CMD Sanjay Singal.

The residential asset is located at Ceejay House in Worli, opposite Ultra Mall, Poonam Chambers, and is worth Rs 190.62 crore, it said in a statement.

"The funds that were utilised for the purchase of this property by Assurity Real Estate LLP were siphoned from BPSL and routed through shell companies projecting the same as unsecured loans."

"It has been established that the so called unsecured loans were without any documentation and repayment obligations," the agency said.

The ED case of money laundering was filed against Singal and others on the basis of a CBI FIR lodged in April, 2019.

The agency claimed a "criminal conspiracy was hatched to dishonestly and fraudulently divert huge amount of bank funds through companies/shell companies and other entities and repayment of the loan amount was deliberately defaulted and inadmissible Cenvat credit was also claimed."

"They did not use the bank funds for the purpose for which the same were sanctioned, committed forgery for the purpose of cheating, used forged documents and falsified the accounts causing wrongful loss to the lending banks, financial institutions, government exchequer and corresponding wrongful gain to themselves."

It was alleged in the CBI FIR that BPSL availed various credit facilities from 33 different banks/financial institutions and the outstanding defaulted amount as on January 30, 2018 was Rs 47,204 crore, it said.

BPSL and its directors "deliberately" defaulted in repayment of loan amounts to lender banks/financial institutions as per the time schedule and their accounts remained continuously irregular, it claimed.

Subsequently, it said, the lead bank in the consortium, the Punjab National Bank (PNB) declared the account of BPSL as NPA (non performing asset) on December 31, 2015, followed by the other banks/financial institutions.

Singal was arrested by the ED in November, 2019 and the agency later attached assets worth over Rs 4,420 crore and also filed a charge sheet before a court in this case.