Coal scam: ED attaches assets worth Rs 186 cr of Hyd firm

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today launched its biggest money laundering action in the coal blocks allocation scam as it attached assets worth a whopping Rs 186 crore of an accused firm based in Hyderabad.
The firm in question, Nava Bharat Power Projects Pvt Ltd, has earlier been chargesheeted by CBI for allegedly misrepresenting facts and making "fraudulent" claims to "embellish" its applications to get coal blocks between 2006 and 2009.
This is the second attachment order by the central economic investigations agency after it attached assets valued at Rs 24.50 crore of a Nagpur based firm in July under the criminal provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in the same probe.

The agency said it trailed and recorded financial transactions of the firm and its directors before attaching the said assets, including shares and land properties, as "proceeds of crime" of the alleged illegal allotment of coal blocks.
"The proceeds of crime totalling Rs 186.11 crore were found to be re-invested by the Directors of Ms Nava Bharat Power Projects Pvt Ltd namely P Trivikrama Prasad in the form of 73,99,99,994 shares of Ms Nava Bharat Energy India Ltd (Ms NBEIL) valued at Rs 147,99,99,988 for which the attachment value is of Rs 138.59 crore," the attachment order issued by the Hyderabad zonal office of the agency said.

The agency, in the order, said it also has attached assets of another director of the firm Y Harish Chandra Prasad "in the form of 8.4 MW Wind Turbine Generators at Rajasthan in the name of Ms Malaxmi Windpower Hyderabad valued at Rs 45.19 crore for which the attachment is valued at Rs 36.32 crore."
The ED, which is probing the case along with CBI, has based its case on the earlier filed complaint and charge sheet of CBI and an attachment order under PMLA laws is aimed at depriving the accused of the benefits of his or her ill-gotten wealth.