The Hindu : Bogus firms booked for FERA violations

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 28, 2002

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Bogus firms booked for FERA violations

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI MAY 27. The Enforcement Directorate today filed as many as 25 complaints against 30 allegedly fraudulent companies of Didwanias for remitting crores of rupees worth of foreign exchange to several countries in the name of importing goods.

The Directorate alleged in the complaints filed by Anjana Gosain and her assistant Digvijai Rai for the Chief Enforcement Officer, R.K. Rawal, that Manoj Kumar Didwania, Anil Kumar Didwania and Anoop Kumar Didwania remitted crores of foreign exchange to the U.S., Britain, Hong Kong, Singapore and Arab countries purportedly to pay for import of consignments. But during investigations, the Directorate found that the accused persons had imported nothing from these countries and remitted the foreign exchange "to launder their black money.''

The Directorate alleged that, surprisingly, all the concerns run by the accused and their frontmen-- Gopal Singh Sood, Subhash Kumar, Krishna Babbar and Praveen Babbar-- were letterhead companies and functioned as conduits for laundering black money. The Directorate had detected these violations in the mid-1990s and had been probing the cases against them for the past six years. The complaints have been filed just five days ahead of the deadline for wrapping up pending cases of FERA violations by May 31.

This would perhaps explain the fact that the Directorate has filed as many as 30 complaints against the accused concerns and their proprietors and the four other accused persons in one day. The complaints allege that the accused had remitted Rs. 40 crores, 20 lakh dollars and five lakh pounds to the above- mentioned and several other countries.

The Directorate alleged that the accused had got foreign exchange for import of goods but did not submit the Exchange Control Copy of `Bills of Entry' as proof of actual import.

Taking cognisance of the complaints, the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, V.K. Maheshwari, summoned all the accused for different dates in July.

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