The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Ajay Parmar — a relative of Sudhir Parmar, who is a former special judge for ED and Central Bureau of Investigation cases — from Haryana’s Panchkula, in connection with an alleged bribery case.
On Friday, the accused was produced before a Panchkula court that sent him to ED custody till June 20. The agency had earlier searched his premises.
The ED probe is based on a First Information Report (FIR) registered by the Anti-Corruption Bureau of Haryana, alleging that favours were extended to several accused persons in criminal cases, including Roop Kumar Bansal and his brother Basant Bansal, who own the M3M group, and Lalit Goyal, owner of the IREO group.
Undue benefits
“It is alleged [in the FIR] that undue benefit was provided to Sudhir Parmar through his relative Ajay Parmar. It was further stated that as per reliable information, instances [as stated therein] of grave misconduct, abuse of official position and demand/acceptance of undue advantage/bribe from the accused persons in the cases pending in his court were observed,” the ED said in a statement on Saturday.
The ED had earlier arrested Mr. Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal in the same case. They are also in its custody till June 20.
Mr. Roop Kumar Bansal, promoter and director of the M3M group, had been previously arrested by the agency with respect to multiple FIRs alleging that public funds invested in IREO and M3M were diverted and misappropriated. In one transaction, M3M had received about ₹400 crore from IREO via shell companies in multiple layers.
Shell companies
According to the agency, the transaction was shown on IREO’s books as payments toward development rights. for land owned by M3M, whose market value was around ₹4 crore. M3M initially sold the development rights of this land to five shell companies for a payment of ₹10 crore. It was claimed that the companies were unrelated., but they were being operated by M3M.
The shell companies had immediately sold the development rights of the same land to IREO for about ₹400 crore. After receiving the amount, they transferred it to M3M through other shell entities owned and operated by M3M. As alleged, IREO did not make any efforts to develop the land and started writing off the investments every year.
