The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal, directors of Gurugram-based realty group M3M, in connection with a money laundering case related to the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) case against a former judge of a special court in Panchkula. Official sources gave information about this. Both the directors were taken into custody by the agency yesterday under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The money laundering case in which he has been arrested is related to the Haryana Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) FIR registered in April against Roop Kumar Bansal, a former special court judge, his nephew and third director of M3M Group.
All the accused denied doing anything wrong
The Haryana Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) had registered a case in April against Justice Sudhir Parmar, his nephew and Roop Kumar Bansal, another director of the M3M Group. Parmar allegedly favored directors of M3M Group and another real estate group IREO in cases before ED and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). According to the ACB’s FIR, Justice was accused of favoritism in the ED and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) cases against the directors of M3M Group and another real estate group called IREO. The justice was later suspended by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. All the accused in the ACB case have denied any wrongdoing.
Raids against M3M promoters and some others
On June 1, the ED conducted raids against M3M Promoters and some others in another money laundering case involving IREO Group and its promoter Lalit Goyal. Subsequently, the agency arrested Roop Kumar Bansal and two other directors Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal. In this case, interim protection from arrest was granted by the Delhi High Court till July 5. However, the ED has now arrested him in a money laundering case involving the ACB.
Embezzlement of hundreds of crores of rupees
In a statement after the June 1 raid, the ED alleged that huge amounts of money worth hundreds of crores were siphoned off through the M3M Group in the case against the IREO Group. It alleged that the M3M group allegedly received around Rs 400 crore from the IREO group through multiple shell companies in multiple layers. (with language input)
