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New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday arrested real estate company Supertech’s chairman and owner RK Arora on money-laundering charges, official sources said.
Arora was taken into custody under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), following a third round of his questioning at the federal agency’s office here, they said.
He is expected to be produced before a special PMLA court here on Wednesday, where the ED will seek his further remand.
The ED is probing a money laundering case against Supertech, its directors, and promoters based on FIRs registered in Delhi, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh.
In the FIRs, Supertech and its directors were accused of cheating as they collected funds from home buyers as an advance against booked flats but failed to hand over the flats to them.
The FIRs also alleged that Supertech and its directors indulged in “criminal conspiracy” to cheat people by collecting funds from prospective buyers as an advance against booked flats in their real estate projects and failed to adhere to its agreed obligations to provide the possession of the flats on time.
Thus, according to the FIRs, the company “defrauded” the general public. According to the ED, the probe found that the funds were collected by Supertech from homebuyers and also took project-specific term loans from banks/financial institutions for the purpose of construction of projects/flats.
However, these funds were “misappropriated and diverted” for the purchase of land in the name of other group companies that were again pledged as collaterals to borrow funds from banks and financial institutions, the agency said.
The ED also said that the real estate firm also “defaulted” on its payments to the banks/financial institutions and around Rs 1,500 crore of such loans have become NPA (non-performing asset).
In April this year, the ED had attached assets worth more than Rs 40 crore of the real estate group and its directors. The agency issued a provisional order to attach 25 immovable properties located in Uttarakhand’s Rudrapur and the ‘Meerut Mall’ in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut.
Last year, Supertech’s illegal twin towers in Noida were demolished using over 3,000 kg of explosives following an order from the Supreme Court.
PTI