LUDHIANA: Textile tycoon Neeraj Saluja has been granted bail by the Punjab and Haryana high court on Wednesday.\
Saluja, ex-director of SEL Textiles Limited, is behind bars since October 2022 in a Rs 1530 crore bank fraud case filed against him and others by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
As per the bail order passed by the court, Saluja will have to fulfill certain conditions like declaring all his assets through notarized affidavit along with assets detail of his wife and children to CBI, within two weeks from his release. They all would have to declare all their assets including foreign accounts,assets, complete details of bank accounts, fixed deposits, DEMAT account numbers, jewellery, sovereign metals, all precious articles held individually or jointly and cash-in-hand by way of notarized affidavits in this regard.
Notably CBI in August 2020 had booked Saluja family including Neeraj, his brother Dhiraj, their late father Ram Sharna and others upon the complaint of bank fraud filed by consortium of banks led by Central Bank of India.
In the complaint moved by the consortium of banks, it was alleged that SEL having its units at Ludhiana, Malout, Nawanshahr (Punjab), Nemrana (Rajasthan) & Hansi (Haryana) was into the business of manufacturing of Yarns, fabrics, etc. Its directors had cheated the consortium of 10 banks (led by Central Bank of India) causing a fraud of Rs. 1530.99 Crore(approx).
On October 28 2022, Neeraj was summoned at CBI's Delhi office in connection with the case against him and he was arrested after being evasive in his replies.
Meanwhile Enforcement Directorate (ED) too recently took big action in this case and in February 2023,
the central agency attached properties worth over Rs. 828 crore belonging to the SEL. Attached properties include land & building, plant & machinery of the company situated at Alwar, Hisar, Sri Muktsar Sahib, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar & Ludhiana.
