ED arrests IREO group’s Lalit Goyal in judge bribery scandal

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Chandigarh, July 4

Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday arrested IREO group’s key person Lalit Goyal in judge bribery scandal. Goyal will be produced before ED’s Panchkula court on Wednesday.

Both ED and Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), Haryana, are investigating the judge bribery scandal. In fact, based on ACB ‘s FIR dated April 17, alleging favours to IREO group’s Lalit Goyal and promoters of M3M by the CBI and EDjudgeSudhir Parmar, ED had registered Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) No. 17 on June 13 againstthejudge, his nephew Ajay Parmar, Roop Bansal, one of the promoters of M3M, and others.

So far in the case, ED had arrested Basant Bansal, Director inM3MIndia Holdings Private Ltd since 2012, and Pankaj Bansal, Director inM3MIndia Private Limited from 2011 to April 1, 2023, and Ajay Parmar. They are in judicial custody now.

SudhirParmarwas posted as a CBI/EDjudgein Panchkula on November 18, 2021, while Lalit Goyal, then MD of the IREO group was arrested by ED on November 16, 2021.

After that, ED’s prosecution complaint against Goyal in a case of siphoning off homebuyers’ investments was filed on January 14, 2021, and the ED court took cognisance on January 21, 2022. ED claims even after a lapse of 1.5 years, Sudhir Parmar as judge didn’t frame charges against Goyal. “The case has been listed many times but postponed each time for disposal of pending applications of accused entities/persons,” says ED, in one of its submissions before a Panchkula court.

As per WhatsApp chats screenshots provided by a source to the ACB,judgeSudhirParmarwas demanding Rs 5-7 crore for helping out the owners of M3M and it is claimed in the FIR that Rs 5 crore was paid to theParmarby accused in IREO case.As per a call recording,Parmarallegedly stated that he had met Lalit Goyal’s wife and brother-in-law Sudhanshu Mittal and had allegedly assured favouring him.

It was later found that IREO and M3M had also siphoned off fund worth Rs 400 crore which are under investigation.

The ACB’s FIR alleged thatSudhirParmarasjudgeof the ED court didn’t let Roop Bansal and Basant Bansal become the accused and in return, his nephewAjayParmarwas given employment by M3M directors.