Bank fraud case: Gagan Dhawan in 7-day Enforcement Directorate remand

Dhawan helped the group directors divert bank loans, the agency claimed.

A Delhi court on Wednesday sent businessman Gagan Dhawan, known to be a close aide of a former Congress MLA, to seven days' Enforcement Directorate (ED) remand in connection with a money laundering case involving the Sterling Group.

The ED told the court that Dhawan had facilitated the directors of the Sterling Group to purchase properties and "helped them in diverting" bank loans. The Sterling Group had taken loans of over Rs 5,000 crore from banks.

When the court asked why the directors of the group had not been arrested, ED special public prosecutor Nitesh Rana said: "Director Chetan Sandesara has left the country and there are procedures which are being followed to bring him back. We have issued several summons to the other accused and there has been no response. We are in the process of issuing non-bailable warrants against them."

The court took a dig at the ED. "You are also sending summons to Laluji (Lalu Prasad)…. What happened?"

The ED had sent summons to Lalu on the allegations that while he was the Railway Minister he had given maintenance of two IRCTC hotels to a company allegedly after receiving bribes.

The ED also submitted to the court that it was "revealed during the investigation" that Dhawan got Rs 1.5 crore from the Sterling Group, and prior to that the bank loan was "rotated among various Sterling group companies ".

Additional sessions judge Ajay Pandey said: "It is submitted that the accused have to be confronted with various voluminous documents, digital evidence collected and the custody is required to ascertain the trail of money….(Considering) the huge amount of public money allegedly siphoned off and in order to facilitate further investigation, custody is granted for seven days."

Defence counsel R K Handoo submitted that the accused was illegally arrested without complying with the requirements of the CrPC and without following the "process of law" in violation of his life and liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. "The allegations in the remand application even if taken at face value do not satisfy any of the requirements of the offences mentioned under the PMLA…. The accused continuously appeared before the authorities for recording of statements under alleged violations of FEMA," Handoo told the court.

He said the ED's investigation came after the CBI registered a case on October 25 against Sterling group, however, "Dhawan is not even named as an accused".