Gurgaon | IREO Group, a Gurgaon based real estate firm who is been accused of defrauding its investors of over Rs. 10,000 crore is yet to face any action from government agencies.
US-based Axon Capital along with the British philanthropist Christopher Hohn’s Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, Tiger Partners, Stanford University and the University of Notre Dame in the last five months have filed for fraud against IREO Group and its Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, Lalit Goyal.
Ramesh Sanka, former CEO of IREO and a whistleblower in this case, alleges that political clout behind the inaction as Lalit Goyal is the brother-in-law of BJP leader Sudhanshu Mittal. Speaking to a media house, Sanka said, “Lalit (Goyal) himself has relatives in political parties. Political pressure is what is stopping it (action). That’s what my opinion and gut feel is.”
Axon Capital and Children’s Investment Fund Foundation that invested nearly Rs. 2,000 crore who first filed a complaint in February 2018 alleged the firm of defrauding them of nearly Rs. 650 crore. The investors later in a detailed complaint in May 2018 alleged Goyal used shadow companies to siphon off nearly Rs. 10,000 crore.
“76 investors have explicitly supported our arbitration to remove the manager and have filed complaints with the regulators. That is two-thirds of the total investors,” Dinakar Singh, CEO and Co-Founder of Axon Capital told media.
Goyal’s IREO used to purchase land in Haryana, using Land-Owning Companies (LOCs) to make the purchases helping them bypass rules that prevent foreign investors from acquiring agricultural land. Once the land use is converted, the LOCs are meant to transfer ownership to IREO. But instead, the complaint alleged that Goyal used a web of companies to acquire ownership of the landowning companies.
Sanka while speaking to a media house said, “Lalit went on transferring these landowning companies and license holding companies to one company by the name Commander Realtors which is now 100% owned by Goyal and his two family members through a layered structure.”
Responding to the charges Goyal clarified that, “The land companies in which I have share must be around less than 10%. 90-95% is owned by someone else”.”Let them present one document that shows that money has come to me and not IREO,” he added.
After a cold response from the agencies, the investors have now approached the Supreme Court, asking the court to direct authorities to act on their complaint against Lalit Goyal.
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