Court directs bizman to appear before Enforcement Directorate in Rs 5,000 crore bank fraud case

NEW DELHI: A city court today directed a Delhi businessman, accused in a Rs 5,000-crore bank loan fraud case, to appear before the Enforcement Directorate for questioning.
Gagan Dhawan, who was earlier arrested by the ED but has been out on bail, has to be confronted with Ranjit Malik alias Johny, who is in the custody of the agency, prosecution said.

Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar Arora directed Dhawan to appear before the agency tomorrow and on August 16.

The court passed the direction after special public prosecutor Nitesh Rana, appearing for ED, said that Dhawan had refused to appear before it despite repeated summons.

The prosecutor also urged the court to cancel Dhawan's bail, alleging that he had violated the conditions of making him available before the probe agency.

In an application, the ED had earlier said Malik had allegedly sent Rs 25 lakh cash through one Rakesh Chandra to a residence on Mother Teresa Crescent road.

Malik was arrested earlier this month by the ED and is currently in its custody.

The period of delivery of the cash was not disclosed by the agency.

Dhawan was arrested on November 1 last year after the ED had alleged that he had facilitated the directors of Gujarat-based pharma firm Sterling Biotech Ltd (SBL) in the purchase of several properties and helped in misuse and diversion of the credit facilities of several bank totalling Rs 5,000 crore.

He was granted bail by a court here on January 4 this year on several conditions, including that he will appear before the agency as and when called for.

The CBI had booked Sterling Biotech, its directors Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara, Dipti Chetan Sandesara, Rajbhushan Omprakash Dixit, Nitin Jayantilal Sandesara and Vilas Joshi, chartered accountant Hemant Hathi, former director Andhra Bank Anup Garg and some unidentified persons in connection with the alleged bank fraud case.

It had alleged that the company had taken loans of over Rs 5,000 crore from a consortium led by Andhra Bank which had turned into non-performing assets.

The FIR had also alleged that the total pending dues of the group companies were Rs 5,383 crore as on December 31, 2016. The ED had taken a cognisance of this FIR to file a money laundering case against them.