The Enforcement Directorate conducted searches at the Gurugram premises of real estate giant DLF as part of a money laundering probe related to real estate firm Supertech and its promoters.
Over the last two days, the central agency recovered several documents during the operation, which is directly connected to the ongoing ED investigation against Supertech.
According to PTI, the searches were related to some other parties and did not pertain to DLF.
The ED officials wanted to verify certain documents related to the transaction, which the company complied with, reportedly.
The ED had arrested Supertech promoter R K or Ram Kishor Arora in this case in June. He is in judicial custody at present.
Advertisement
At that time, it was claimed that Arora served as the primary controlling individual of the group, orchestrating the "diversion" of substantial funds from investors and homebuyers to numerous shell companies.
The case, filed under the criminal provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), originated from 26 FIRs lodged by the police departments of Delhi, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh against Supertech Limited and its affiliated companies.
These allegations accused the entities of defrauding 670 homebuyers for a sum totaling Rs 164 crore.
The ED had said "huge amounts of money running into hundreds of crores were siphoned off through Supertech Group and they failed to adhere to their agreed obligations to provide the possession of flats to customers on time".
Advertisement
It claimed that Supertech Group "siphoned off Rs 440 crore received from customers and homebuyers for purchasing land in Gurugram in 2013-14 at highly inflated prices while their already promised projects in Noida were not completed".
A new project was launched on this newly acquired land and further advance was collected from hundreds of homebuyers and loans were taken from banks/NBFCs which also became NPA and were declared "fraud" by banks, it alleged.
Supertech Ltd, which was formed in 1988, has so far delivered around 80,000 apartments, mainly in the Delhi-NCR market. The company is currently developing around 25 projects across National Capital Region (NCR). It is yet to give possession to more than 20,000 customers.
The company has been in crisis since last year.
In August 2022, Supertech suffered a big setback when its nearly 100-metre-tall twin towers -- Apex and Ceyane -- located on Noida Expressway were demolished as per a Supreme Court order that found their construction within Emerald Court premises in violation of norms.
More than 3,700 kg of explosives were used to demolish the two towers.
Arora had then said that the company incurred a loss of about Rs 500 crore, including construction and interest costs, because of the demolition of its twin towers in Noida.
The company suffered another blow last year when the Delhi bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in March had ordered to initiate the insolvency proceedings against Supertech Ltd over a petition filed by the Union Bank of India for non-payment of dues of around Rs 432 crore.
Advertisement
However, this was challenged by Arora before the NCLAT.
