Suspecting serious offences, including money laundering, in an insolvency petition filed by a finance and real estate businessman with claims from creditors running to crores of rupees, the Madras High Court has transferred the probe to the CBI from the Tamil Nadu police.
The matter relates to an insolvency petition filed by businessman Arjunlal Sunderdas, in which Chief Justice Indira Banerjee had constituted a Special Bench comprising justices G Jayachandran and C V Karthikeyan to examine the issues in the plea.
The Special Bench, on its perusal of a police (Economic Offences Wing) report, in its order, said the materials placed before it led to a strong suspicion of offences, including money laundering.
"This court is of the opinion that the Economic Offences Wing may not be in a position to complete the investigation with its restriction on jurisdiction," the court said.
The Madras High Court, in its March 7, 2017 order, had directed the official assignee of the court to file a police complaint in view of the enormous amount of funds and numerous transactions involved in the case.
Sunderdas was engaged in finance and real estate business under the name of "Arjunlal Sunderdas". He had incorporated four companies under the Companies Act.
Following a petition from a Mumbai-based creditor, Chitra Desai, the properties of Sunderdas were vested with the official assignee for realisation and distribution among his creditors.
Totally, 299 petitions were filed by the creditors, making claims to the tune of crores of rupees.
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the police had registered an FIR on April 10, 2017 under various sections of the IPC against Sunderdas.
The FIR had spoken of large-scale diversion of funds, including offences under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
In its status report, the EOW had said large-scale money laundering had occurred across several states, including Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Haryana, Karnataka, New Delhi and Puducherry.
It was also reported that there had been flow of funds from the US.
The police reports had expressed limitations in conducting the probe since the sum involved inter-state transactions and claimants from various states and abroad, the court noted.
The bench, in its order, said the extent of money involved in the case and several suspicious circumstances around the insolvency petition merited the transfer of the probe to the CBI.
It directed the authorities to file a report on the progress of the probe on June 6 and posted the matter for further hearing on the same date.
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