Mumbai:
A special court here on Friday granted bail to Kapil Wadhawan, chairman and MD of Dewan Housing Finance (DHFL) who is accused of having dealings with dead gangster Iqbal Mirchi in the past.
Kapil Wadhawan (46) was arrested on January 27 by the Enforcement Directorate under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Claiming that he had no connection with the transaction of Mirchi’s properties, Kapil Wadhawan had move a bail plea before special PMLA court judge P Rajvaidya earlier this month.
While arguing for his bail, defence lawyer Amit Desai submitted the transaction of DHFL, which the ED has cited for Kapil Wadhawan’s arrest, has nothing to do with dealings of Mirchi.
During arguments, the central investigating agency had opposed the bail plea on several grounds including that Kapil Wadhawan may influence the probe.
According to the ED, Kapil Wadhawan was instrumental in laundering of huge amounts of money as part of an illegal deal with Mirchi.
A sum of Rs 12,773 crore was siphoned off from DHFL on the pretext of providing loans to one lakh fictitious customers, the ED said.
A part of this loan was used to make payments to Mirchi, who died in 2013 in London, it said.
Mirchi’s Mumbai properties were sold to Sunblink Real Estate Pvt Ltd, a company linked to the Wadhawan brothers, Kapil and Dheeraj, the central agency has said.
The agency has alleged Kapil Wadhawan “diverted” funds from DHFL to shell companies and later these dubious entities got amalgamated with Sunblink to “cover” alleged diversion of loans acquired from the housing finance firm.
Mirchi was allegedly the right hand man of global terrorist Dawood Ibrahim in the latter’s drug trafficking and extortion businesses.
