KOCHI: V P Nandakumar, managing director and CEO of Manappuram Finance Ltd, on Friday clarified that the visit of Enforcement Directorate (ED) to the company’s premises had “nothing to do with the business affairs” of the company and was “based on a mala fide FIR filed by a person who harbours a personal grudge against him and his family”.
In a filing to the stock exchanges, Manappuram Finance released a copy of the letter Nandakumar sent to the board members of the Thrissur-based NBFC, which also said the total value of the shares attached by the ED is worth around Rs 2,000 crore and not around Rs 140 crore as reported in a section of the media.
In the letter, Nandakumar termed the order of freezing was under Section 17 (1-A) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 in respect of certain assets. These include 19,29,01,996 equity shares in the company. “This order is patently high-handed, arbitrary and unreasonable for many reasons,” he said.
The ED officers visited the registered office of the company at Valapad in Thrissur on May 3 and May 4. “The ED visit has nothing to do with the affairs of the company but pertains to a 10 year-old matter of my erstwhile proprietorship Manappuram Agro Farms (Magro), which is no longer in existence.
The freezing order itself clarifies that the ED’s search operation was directed at Agrofarm. Steps taken by me in this regard have largely been accepted by Reserve Bank of India vide its letter dated January 1, 2015,” he said.