ED runs Gurugram office from farmhouse it confiscated, PSU bank challenges it in court

A sojourn shows that, including casual employees, determination is simply a unit of astir 100 moving inside. The sprawling cardinal tract of the farmhouse, with a marketplace complaint estimated by section spot dealers to beryllium worthy Rs 120 crore, lined with fir trees and metallic palm, serves arsenic a parking batch for seized cars. There were astir 40 cars connected Thursday, immoderate priced astatine Rs 1 crore plus.

Seized cars lined up astatine ED’s Rajokri farmhouse office. (Express photograph by Ritu Sarin)

Officers accidental erstwhile ED office successful New Delhi is abbreviated of abstraction for parking pricey cars confiscated arsenic proceeds of crime, they enactment them up astatine this sprawling ED “office” successful Rajokri. Besides a gait for seized cars, 1 ample surviving country besides doubles up arsenic the agency’s grooming centre by the ED.

This precise farmhouse has been the taxable of ample litigation, earlier successful the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) and the Delhi High Court and, astatine present, successful the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) tribunal successful Panchkula, wherever the Union Bank of India (earlier Corporation Bank) has challenged the ED’s attachment and confiscation of the spot arsenic a “proceed of crime.”

Reason: the farmhouse belonged to Atul Bansal, a realtor, alleged to beryllium the main accused successful a spot and wealth laundering case, and has since passed away.

He had purchased the spot successful 2004 and, it was successful 2012, that helium mortgaged it, on with different assets, with a consortium of banks for a sum of Rs 111 crore.

The Rajokri farmhouse was mortgaged with Union Bank of India by Wisdom Realtors, a institution of Atul Bansal, and aft default, the slope took possession of the spot successful 2017.

The indoor swimming excavation country present a dump gait for discarded sarkari furniture. (Express photograph by Ritu Sarin)

It was Wisdom Realtors which challenged the possession successful the DRT and obtained a enactment order, which the slope again appealed against successful Debt Recovery Appellate Tribunal (DRAT).

A speechmaking of the 2019 DRAT bid shows that astatine that stage, Wisdom Realtors had fixed a “settlement connection to the Bank for Rs 96 crores unusual for which magnitude determination was a purchaser acceptable to bargain the property” but the merchantability yet did not happen.

Lawyers appearing for the Union Bank successful Panchkula said that it was successful 2019, again, that they learnt that it was the ED that had archetypal attached and aboriginal confiscated the spot which had been mortgaged with them.

That bid of confiscation and its confirmation, too, has been challenged by the Bank.

When contacted, Union Bank of India’s lawyer Alok Kumar explained wherefore the ED’s confiscation and consequent usage of the Rajokri spot was being challenged by the Bank. “The intent of attachment oregon confiscation (by ED) is to recognize the dues for the Government exchequer. If the intent is defeated by the information that contempt attachment oregon confiscation, the ED has neither handed implicit the spot to the Bank nor auctioned it to recognize nationalist money, astatine the extremity of the day, the spot has go NPA (Non Performing Asset). By opening an bureau inside, that precise intent of PMLA is defeated.”

Two lock-ups for pmla accused wrong the rajokri farmhouse building. (Express photograph by Ritu Sarin)

According to apical officials of ED successful New Delhi, the Rajokri spot was among 3 specified confiscated properties successful which the investigating bureau was moving “establishments.”

The different 2 were successful Ranchi and Mumbai wherever determination whitethorn beryllium nary situation from Banks arsenic successful the lawsuit of the Rajokri property.

The officials said that nether provisions of Section 9 of the PMLA, specified “confiscated properties” stay “vested with the Central Government” and that it was a Gazette notification of the Ministry of Finance dated September 12, 2023 that gave powers to Special Directors of the ED to enactment arsenic “Administrators” to “receive, negociate and dispose the spot confiscated…”

Said a apical official: “While the notification does not authorities that the ED tin usage the confiscated properties arsenic offices, the properties tin beryllium utilized and managed arsenic the Department wants. We are, simply, utilizing this farmhouse, for example, till the clip of disposal of the spot comes.”

Inside the Rajokri farmhouse, officers and unit person occupied the erstwhile backstage bedrooms, surviving rooms and walk-in closets arsenic converted bureau spaces. They said “maintenance” of the spot is simply a daunting task. Said a elder authoritative moving successful farmhouse: “Ideally, the ED should person its Gurugram zonal bureau successful Gurugram itself and if we bash get alternate space, possibly the farmhouse volition beryllium utilized by the ED arsenic a grooming centre successful future. By utilizing the spot arsenic its zonal office, astatine slightest the farmhouse is being maintained and not being allowed to spell into disrepair.”