Enforcement Directorate seizes cars, jewellery, cash after raids on MLA premises
New Delhi, July 31
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today said it had conducted searches at 11 locations in Samalkha, Gurugram and Delhi on July 25 in cases of alleged forgery linked to Mahira Infratech and other group companies owned and controlled by Haryana MLA Dharam Singh Chhoker.
The agency, in an official statement, said it had seized four luxury cars (Fortuner-2 and Mercedes-2), having approximate accusation value of Rs 4 crore, jewellery worth Rs 14.5 lakh and Rs 4.5 lakh, besides various incriminating documents under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The ED said its case under provisions of the PMLA against Chhoker and Mahira Infratech was based on the FIRs registered by the Gurugram Police against them for cheating and forgery.
“The directors/promoters of Mahira Group, Dharam Singh Chhoker, Sikander Singh and Vikas Chhoker and other key employees remained absent during the ED search and till date have not joined the investigation,” the ED said.
Freezing orders in respect of offices and bank accounts of Mahira Group were issued during the search operations.
“The accused company had collected about Rs 360 crore from 1,497 home buyers under the affordable housing scheme on the promise of providing houses in Sector 68, Gurugram. But the said entity failed to deliver the houses and missed multiple deadlines,” the ED alleged, adding that the home buyers had been holding protests/dharnas for the past one year against the Mahira Group, seeking the delivery of the promised houses at the earliest.
“The ED investigations revealed that the said entity siphoned off home buyers’ money by booking fake construction expenditure in group entities. Cash equivalent to the fake purchases was received back from the entities providing fake bills/ invoices by the directors/promoters of Mahira Group, which was used for personal gains,” the ED said.
Alleging that “several personal family expenditures were also booked as construction/business expenditure in group entities”, the ED said, “The directors/promoters also diverted home buyers’ money to other group entities as loans for personal gains.”
It also said that preliminary investigation showed that “the directors/promoters of Mahira Group siphoned off about Rs 107.5 crore (fake expenses to the extent of Rs 57 crore and loans to group entities to the extent of Rs 50.50 crore) from the company, which belonged to home buyers of Sector 68 housing project alone.”
