Court sends bizman held in bank fraud case to 7-day ED custody

Delhi-based businessman Gagan Dhawan was sent to a seven-day custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) by a city court following his arrest today in connection with a Rs 5,000 crore money laundering probe.
Additional Sessions Judge Ajay Pandey allowed the probe agency's plea seeking custody of Dhawan, who was arrested in an alleged bank fraud case involving a Gujarat- based pharma firm and few other hawala deals
The ED has sought 14-day custody of the businessman.
Official sources had said the central probe agency arrested Dhawan from the national capital under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Dhawan, they said, was on the radar of the agency for allegedly aiding bank loan frauds related to Sterling Biotech, the Vadodara-based company, and few other similar alleged illegal transactions.
The firm and Dhawan are also beingprobed by the Enforcement Directorate for allegedly bribing senior income tax department officials as part of an earlier criminal complaint.

The agency had carried out searches against Dhawan and a former Congress MLA in Delhi in August.
The CBI had recently 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 other unidentified persons in connection with the alleged bank fraud case.

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