The ‘raids’ on the Mumbai office of IL&FS by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) on Tuesday were not raids or searches, but routine exercises to collect all the physical data and the information stored on the computers as part of the ongoing investigation, a senior official in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) said on Wednesday.
“A raid constitutes suspicion of fresh wrong-doing, whereas this was in the pursuance of an existing investigation,” the official said. “The SFIO officials simply went there to collect all the files, both physical and on the computer, for their ongoing investigation of the affairs of the company.” The Hindu, had on Oct. 1, reported that MCA had directed SFIO to begin investigating IL&FS.
Over the last few years, IL&FS has seen a significant increase in its debt levels, a situation that further deteriorated when the company defaulted on several repayment obligations. The government, on Tuesday, wrote to the National Company Law Tribunal seeking to replace the existing board of IL&FS with a new one. The NCLT approved this, appointing a new board with Uday Kotak as non-executive chairman.