The Enforcement Directorate may submit its first charge sheet against Yes Bank’s founder Rana Kapoor and his family on May 6 in a special court hearing cases under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Mumbai. The charge sheet will mainly focus on Rana Kapoor and his family members.
Sources told Moneycontrol that the ED may serve the charge sheet to his three daughters, wife and their companies, which have allegedly received benefits.
On March 8, the investigation agency had arrested Rana Kapoor after more than 30 hours of interrogation. It had initiated a money laundering investigation against him and others, based on a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case for alleged ‘suspicious’ transactions with Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (DHFL) in 2018.
The ED learnt that Yes Bank had subscribed to debentures worth Rs 3,700 crore during April-June 2018 and simultaneously DHFL sanctioned a loan worth Rs 600 crore to Doit Urban Ventures (India), a family enterprise of the Kapoors. Kapoor’s three daughters -- Roshini, Radha and Raakhee -- are 100 percent shareholders of Doit Urban Ventures via another firm, Morgan Credits Pvt. DHFL is yet to pay back the Rs 3,700 crore invested by Yes Bank in its debentures.
ED said the loan was allegedly provided on a collateral of five properties, which have a meagre value, and by taking into account their future conversion from agricultural to residential land. The statements of several witnesses were recorded as part of the probe and according to which it appears that DHFL granted a loan of Rs 600 crore to Doit Urban Ventures on mortgage of the properties, whose acquisition cost was only Rs 39.66 crore, by showing their inflated value as Rs 735 crore, a source said.
“There has been no change in the status quo of the said plots: 7.79 acres in Alibaug and 91.63 acres in Raigad. Their collective worth was assessed at Rs 485 crore by DHFL, which that would have been realised only after converting their land-use and on development,” the source added.
A second source said Kapoor is accused of extending financial assistance to DHFL and others in lieu of substantial undue benefit to his family members and himself.
Kapoor is also in the ED’s cross-hairs about a Rs 750 crore loan to a firm allegedly controlled by the DHFL group for a redevelopment project in Bandra Reclamation. The ED, the second source said, is of the view that a portion of the loan was transferred to a DHFL-controlled company, which is yet to make an investment in the project.
As part of its investigation, the ED scanned records of around a 104 shell firms controlled by Kapoor and his family for irregularities. On April 26, the CBI arrested DHFL’s promoter director Kapil Wadhawan and his brother, the firm's former Non-Executive Director, Dheeraj.
Kapoor is also under its scanner for alleged irregularities linked to the grant of loan worth Rs 202.1 crore to a joint venture -- Mack Star Marketing Pvt -- of Housing Development and Infrastructure (HDIL) and De Shaw group between 2014 and 2016, ostensibly for the renovation/refurbishment of a barely two year-old office premises in Andheri, a third source said. The whole loan amount was allegedly siphoned off to HDIL group companies and were utilised to pay off its loans from Yes Bank, the source added.
The probe revealed that parts (around Rs 9.6 crore) of the total loan amount had been sanctioned by Yes Bank despite having received objections from De Shaw group, which holds 83.36 percent stake in the joint venture, a source said. The investor’s letter, dated March 18, 2016, notified Yes Bank that the loans extended to Mack Star were "ultra vires to the JV’s articles since the investor hadn’t approved these loans."
Out of the total loan amount, around Rs 160 crore was sanctioned for “refurbishment, modification and renovation” of a two-year old office premises constructed at a cost of around Rs 100 crore, the source said.
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