India News | Court Seeks Response from ED on Bail Plea of Avantha Group Promoter Gautam Thapar
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. A Delhi court on Friday sought response from the Enforcement Directorate on the bail application of businessman and Avantha Group of companies promoter Gautam Thapar in connection with a money laundering case.
New Delhi, Sep 17 (PTI) A Delhi court on Friday sought response from the Enforcement Directorate on the bail application of businessman and Avantha Group of companies promoter Gautam Thapar in connection with a money laundering case.
Special judge Sanjeev Aggarwal issued notice to the ED and sought their reply by September 27.
The application claimed that the accused was no longer required for custodial interrogation and no purpose will be served by keeping him in further custody.
The bail application, moved through the law firm Karanjawal & Co., claimed that there was no possibility of the accused tempering with the evidence or influencing the witnesses.
Thapar, 60, was arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on August 3, after the agency carried out raids against him and his linked businesses in Delhi and Mumbai.
The ED was probing an alleged transaction between his company Avantha Realty, Yes Bank co-founder Rana Kapoor and his wife, who are already being investigated under the PMLA by the agency.
The case of money laundering was filed by the ED after taking cognisance of an FIR lodged by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The FIR lodged by the CBI alleged that Rana Kapoor, then MD and CEO of Yes Bank Limited, obtained illegal gratification in the form of a property in a prime location in Delhi at much less than the realisable market value belonging to Avantha Reality Ltd for sanction of a loan to ARL and for extending concessions, relaxations and waivers in the already existing credit facilities provided to Avantha Group companies and for advancing new and additional loans to them by Yes Bank Ltd.
The CBI had last year booked Kapoor and his wife Bindu for allegedly obtaining a bribe of Rs 307 crore through the purchase of a bungalow in a tony Delhi area from a realty firm at half the market price and facilitating around Rs 1,900 crore bank loans to it in return.
The CBI suspected that the discounted transaction for the 1.2 acre-bungalow on Amrita Shergill Marg in Delhi was a gratification to Kapoor through the company Bliss Abode Pvt Ltd in return for non-realisation of over Rs 1,900 crore in loans from Yes Bank to Avantha Realty and group companies.
In June, 2021 the CBI had booked Thapar and others in a fresh case of fraud of Rs 2,435 crore in the State Bank of India (SBI) and other banks to probe an alleged fraud case at the CG Power and Industrial Solutions.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)