YES Bank crisis: Court sends Rana Kapoor to judicial custody till April 2

The session’s court in Mumbai on Friday sent Rana Kapoor, former managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of YES Bank, to judicial custody till April 2. This came after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) submitted before the court that it does not need Kapoor’s custody any further.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has also moved a production warrant to take Kapoor into custody. The CBI had filed a case against Kapoor for allegedly obtaining illegal gratification by acquiring a property in New Delhi from Gautam Thapar’s Avantha group. In exchange, YES Bank waived the industrial house’s dues and advanced new loans.
 

Earlier, Kapoor’s ED custody was extended by four days to March 20 while the ED had asked for a six-day custody. The former banker was arrested on March 8 by the ED under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and was since in the probe agency’s custody.
 

Kapoor told the court on Friday that he is suffering from asthma, and because of his age, he is vulnerable to coronavirus. The court has asked the jail authorities to take appropriate precautions on this count.
 

Meanwhile, a number of high profile corporate promoters were summoned by the investigative agency, including Anil Ambani, Naresh Goyal, Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan, Subash Chandra and Sameer Gehlaut in connection with the YES Bank case.

Anil Ambani was questioned by the ED on Thursday and asked to furnish some important details which are crucial for the case, said an ED official. Ambani’s Reliance group is among the largest borrowers of the bank, with an exposure of around Rs 13,000 crore. 
 

Ambani sought more time from the agency to provide further clarifications on some specific queries. The probe agency has asked him to appear again on March 30. Other big defaulters of YES Bank, who had been summoned by the ED to appear this week, did not show up.
 

During investigations, the probe agency found that a loan of Rs 202 crore was sanctioned to Mack Star Marketing, which is a joint venture among HDIL promoters Sarang Wadhawan & Rakesh Wadhawan, former Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank chairman Waryam Singh and the De Shaw group. 
 

The first three hold only 16.64 per cent shares in the entity while the De Shaw group holds majority stake. The ED found that the loan of Rs 202 crore, sanctioned to Mack Star Marketing, was used by HDIL to pay off its previous loans. The loan was sanctioned to the entity with the specific purpose of renovating its office building.

Further investigations have revealed that about 78 companies owned by Kapoor’s family members were being controlled and managed by Kapoor himself.

The ED has also found that YES Bank had bought debentures of Dewan Housing Finance (DHFL) worth Rs 3,700 crore while the latter gave a loan to a company owned by Kapoor’s daughters for Rs 600 crore. 

Both the transactions were suspicious as the company owned by Kapoor’s daughters did not have sufficient businesses or assets. Also, the mortgage shown for the loan was only a property worth around Rs 40 crore. The property mortgaged was an agricultural land shown as residential land with its worth inflated.