The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally hooked up property to the tune of Rs 452 crores belonging to a Singapore firm in reference to its probe into alleged cash laundering related to irregularities in IL&FS group firms.
The company claimed it has hooked up property, within the type of shares, that M/S AS Coal Pte Singapore held in ILFS Tamil Nadu Power Company Limited (ITPCL). Owned by British nationwide Jaimin Vyas, AS Coal, which ED has claimed is a shell firm, had acquired 8.86% shares in ITPCL. This has been recognized by ED as proceeds of crime owing out f kickbacks that Vyas acquired for favouring a Chinese firm with an ITPCL contract.
The ED case is predicated on a Delhi police FIR and investigations performed by the Serious Fraud Investigation workplace (SFIO) towards IL&FS Financial Services (IFIN) and its officers.
ED has claimed there was a “planned conspiracy to defraud IL&FS and Indian banks” by Jaimin Vyas in connivance with official on IL&FS and Chinese engineering, procurement and development (EPC) firm M/s SEPCO III.
“The company’s right to select the EPC Contractor was illegally delegated to Jaimin Vyas, violating the terms and conditions of Share Purchase Agreement. Jaimin Vyas thereafter nominated SEPCO as EPC contractor and got kick back in guise of fees for consultancy services. The same money was routed as equity investment in ITPCL. Subsequently, ITPCL paid SEPCO III the amount (paid earlier by SEPCO to Jaimin Vyas) by inflating the value of the contract and payments were also made in the guise of early completion of project,” ED has mentioned in an announcement.
It has claimed Vyas additionally acquired unlawful gratification from M/S Noble Coal in lieu of allegedly awarding coal provide contract (to ITPCL) at an inflated charge.
Earlier, ED had hooked up movable and immovable properties of committee of administrators of IFIN totaling to Rs 126 crores, and movable and immovable properties of two defaulters of IFIN, M/s SIVA Group and M/s ABG Group totaling to Rs 1400 crores.
The Indian Express had in July, 2020, reported that an audit report, ready by Grant Thornton, of ITPCL had raised considerations over the transaction underlying the sale of ITPCL stake to AS Coal Resource because it has discovered that SEPCO Electric Power Construction Corporation allegedly offered monetary help of about Rs 800 crore to entities related to Vyas, for acquisition of ITPCL shares.
The audit report, submitted to a consortium of lenders led by Punjab National Bank in June 2020, had discovered that SEPCO was one of many contractors of ITPCL and it had acquired cash from the ability agency for numerous contracts.
ITPCL operates a 1,200-MW imported coal-based plant in Cuddalore. Around Rs 10,600 crore was invested within the venture, of which public sector banks have given loans of Rs 6,080 crore and IL&FS Energy Development Company Ltd (IEDCL), a subsidiary of IL&FS, has put in Rs 4,560 crore.
ITPCL, which is present process insolvency proceedings, owes over Rs 6,700 crore to banks and about Rs 900 crore to IL&FS entities. At current, AS Coal Resource has 8.6 per cent stake in ITPCL and IEDCL holds the remaining 91.4 per cent.
