NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate will be producing Lalit Goyal before a court in Panchkula to seek his custody in a money laundering case. Goyal is the owner and managing director of IREO -the largest Private Equity Fund dedicated to the Indian realty sector. He was arrested on Tuesday, linked to alleged bribery of a special judge based in Panchkula, who is now under suspension following charges of corruption.
According to sources in the ED, Goyal was arrested by the agency from Gurgaon under charges slapped on him under the relevant sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The money laundering case is a follow-up investigation by the ED stems from an FIR filed by the anti-corruption wing of Haryana Police in April against former special CBI-ED judge Sudhir Parmar, who was posted in Panchkula, his nephew Ajay Parmar, and Roop Kumar Bansal, the promoter of another realty group M3M, and others.
Goyal's arrest is the fourth arrest made by the ED in this case within a month. The agency has already arrested Ajay Parmar and two directors of the M3M group -- Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal.
As per the allegation of the anti-corruption branch, the ED said, reliable information was received that Sudhir Parmar was showing "favouritism" to the accused, namely Roop Kumar Bansal, his brother Basant Bansal and IREO's Lalit Goyal in the criminal cases of the ED and other cases of the CBI pending against them in his court.
Goyal, the MD and vice president of the IREO Group, was earlier arrested by the ED in 2021 in connection with another money laundering investigation. In 2022, the ED attached assets worth more than Rs 1,317 crore of the IREO Group, Lalit Goyal and associated entities in connection with another money laundering probe.
The agency, before registering this money laundering case against Goyal, took cognisance of at least 30 FIRs filed at various police stations located in Gurugram, Panchkula, Ludhiana and Delhi against the IREO Group, linked entities, its directors, key managerial persons and others.
The firm IREO is the first and the largest Private Equity Fund dedicated to the Indian real estate sector with nearly US$2 bn of funds committed to India from various foreign investment firms. According to sources various well-known individuals and business entities from across the globe has parked their funds as investments in IREO.
The Group has a pan India footprint with a land bank of more than 4500 acres and 23 projects in prime locations across NCR, Haryana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra under various stages of development and implementation.
The ED has taken up the case involving Parmar on the basis of reliable information, that suggests instances of grave misconduct, abuse of official position and demand and acceptance of illegal gratifications from the accused persons in connection with cases pending in his court with respect to the realty firms. Parmar was suspended by the Punjab and Haryana High Court after the case was lodged.
The probe found, the agency said, that the accused "duped" innocent buyers by promising them to deliver flats, plots, commercial spaces etc., however, they neither delivered the projects nor returned their money.
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