ED summons Mukesh Mittal’s associates

Amit Sharma

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 17

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned two close associates and an aide of lawyer Mukesh Mittal for questioning in the coming week.

The ED is investigating a case of money laundering registered in 2013, in which the alleged role of lawyer Mukesh Mittal is being probed.

ED sources said they had summoned Manish Kumar, brother of Mittal’s clerk Parveen Kumar. “We had recovered a large number of blank cheques signed by Manish Kumar during the raid on Mittal’s house in Sector 18 on January 13,” said an ED official.

A total of 214 blank cheques signed by several people were recovered from Mittal’s house.

Another person who has been summoned for questioning is Rajiv Awasthi, who, along with Mittal’s clerk Ajay Singh, is the director of a company registered under the name, Awasthi Real Estates Pvt Ltd. The company is under the ED scanner in the case of alleged money laundering.

Nishant Goel is the third person who has been summoned for questioning. Goel is one of the partners in the firm, Pushpak Land Links. According to ED officials, amounts of around Rs 1.10 crore and Rs 1.75 crore were transferred to the bank accounts of the firm from the bank account of Mittal’s driver Lal Chand.

These people will be questioned separately on January 19, 20 and 21 at the ED office, housed in the UT Printing Press Building, Sector 18.

Around 13 companies that have Mittal’s aides and associates as the directors and three firms are under the ED scanner for alleged money laundering. The ED has already frozen 108 banks accounts of Mittal and his associates.

The ED will question Mukesh Mittal again to seek more details in the case.

The case

On July 22, 2009, a case was registered under Sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120-B of the IPC at the Vigilance police station, Chandigarh, on a complaint of the owner of SCF 8, Sector 20, Tara Singh, who is an NRI based in the UK. The complaint was regarding the sale of a property on the basis of a forged general power of attorney. The UT police booked advocate GS Sawhney, his munshi Harnek Singh, advocate JB Singh and Tara Singh’s brother Jaswant Singh, who were suspected to be involved in forging the power of attorney of Tara Singh and selling the SCF to OP Mittal, who was a tenant in the SCF. The ED also registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act — 2002, in March 2013 after alleged money laundering was detected in the case.