Indian Agency Seeks Revocation of Passport of Absconding Fraud Accused Pharma Firm Director

By Little India Desk | March 10, 2018

The Indian Enforcement Directorate (ED) is set to write to the Ministry of External Affairs, seeking to revoke the passport of one of the directors of Sterling Biotech Ltd, a Gujarat-based pharmaceutical company, who is absconding.

The agency’s planned move is in connection with the ongoing money laundering investigation in the suspected Rs 5,000 crore bank fraud case. “In November last year, a Delhi court had issued non-bailable warrants against two directors of the Gujarat-based pharma firm,” IANS reported quoting an agency source. The source added that one of the top directors of the company has been located in a south European country, and so the agency will soon approach the MEA to revoke his passport.

Since the registration of the case, some of the directors of the company have gone either underground or missing.

In November last year, additional sessions judge Siddharth Sharma, who had earlier told the ED not to let “the shark run away while you (ED) are busy in catching the small fish,” issued warrants against Sterling Biotech Ltd directors Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara and Nitin Jayantilal Sandesara, PTI had reported earlier.

Warrants were issued against the duo for evading the summons of the Enforcement Directorate.

Meanwhile, the ED filed a supplementary chargesheet on March 9 against former Andhra Bank director Anup Prakash Garg in connection with the case, the Times of India reported. It has claimed that the Sandesaras paid over Rs 1.52 crore to Garg as quid pro quo to enable bank credit and other transactions.

Garg was the director of Andhra Bank in the period when the SBL group availed credit facilities of around Rs 23,500 lakh, during 2006-2009, from the bank.

Garg was arrested by the ED on Jan. 12 this year and is now in judicial custody. His properties worth Rs 1.23 crore have been attached by the agency.

The company had taken loans worth more than Rs 5,000 crore from a consortium of banks led by Andhra Bank, which had turned into non-performing assets. According to the Central Bureau of Investigation’s FIR, the total pending dues of the group companies were Rs 5,383 crore as on Dec. 31, 2016.

Last year, the CBI had booked Sterling Biotech Ltd’s chairman and managing director Nitin Sandesara, joint managing director Chetan Sandesara, directors Vilas D Joshi, Rajbhushan Dixit and others in the bank fraud case.

After taking cognizance of the CBI’s FIR, a case of money laundering was registered by the ED, and it has arrested three people so far in the case, according to TOI.

Along with Garg, Dixit was also arrested in January this year. In November last year, the agency also arrested a Delhi-based businessman Gagan Dhawan in association with the case. The court in November last year had issued open ended non-bailable warrants against the Sandesara brothers.