ED attaches assets worth over Rs 54 crore of IFFCO MD U S Awasthi under money-laundering law
New Delhi, September 28
Fresh assets, including mutual funds, shares, bonds and bank deposits, valued at more than Rs 54 crore, belonging to IFFCO Managing Director U S Awasthi have been attached in connection with a money-laundering case, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said on Wednesday.
The case against Awasthi, his family members and others is linked to an alleged fertiliser scam and payment of kickbacks to the tune of Rs 685 crore.
The federal probe agency, in a similar action undertaken in June, had attached Awasthi’s properties worth Rs 20.96 crore.
In a statement, the ED said the “proceeds of crime had travelled from various entities having business interests with IFFCO and a company called IPL to the entities controlled by Rajiv Saxena, which were projected as commission income and the same were further layered and parked in various entities under the control of various persons, including Amol Awasthi (son of Udai Shanker Awasthi), or to these persons themselves and projected in their hands as genuine income/expenses”.
The assets, provisionally attached under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on September 22, include mutual funds, equity shares, bonds and bank balances and are valued at Rs 54.24 crore.
The case relates to illegal commissions worth more than Rs 685 crore allegedly given to the NRI sons of IFFCO Managing Director and CEO Awasthi and Indian Potash Limited (IPL) Managing Director P S Gahlaut as well as others by overseas suppliers from 2007 to 2014.
Indian Farmers’ Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO) is a multi-state farmers’ cooperative, while IPL is its company involved in supplying fertilisers for which the government provides subsidies to keep the rates affordable for farmers.
The agency had earlier attached fixed deposits valued at Rs 27.79 crore in the name of Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD) Rajya Sabha MP Amarendra Dhari Singh, deposits of about Rs 36.55 crore kept in the Swiss bank accounts of Atrium Holdings Limited and Artistic Holdings Limited (both beneficially owned by another accused in the case, Pankaj Jain), apart from residential and commercial properties valued at Rs 54.11 lakh belonging to Jain.
The MP was arrested by the agency. He later got bail from a court.
The ED had filed a chargesheet in the case before a court in July last year.
The court, the ED said, held that “all accused persons knowingly assisted or were knowingly involved in acquisition of proceeds of crime and hence, were liable to be summoned for the said offence” and proceeded to issue summonses against them.
The money-laundering case stems from an FIR lodged by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on May 17, 2021.
The CBI alleged that between 2007 and 2014, in order to claim higher subsidies, Awasthi and Gahlaut, as part of a “criminal conspiracy”, imported fertilisers at highly-inflated rates. This included their commissions from various overseas suppliers.
The commission amounts were siphoned out of India through their sons based in the United States and other accused persons, including the owners of Jyoti Trading Corporation and the Rare Earth Group, Pankaj Jain, who was linked to both companies, his brother Sanjay Jain as well as Dhari and Rajiv Saxena (an accused in the VVIP choppers deal case), the CBI said in its FIR.
It added that Saxena and his associates received USD 114.32 million (around Rs 685 crore) at a transaction rate of Rs 60 per dollar as illegal commission in the bank accounts of his group companies and in the individual accounts of Jain, Gahlaut’s son Vivek, Awasthi’s son Amol as well as the RJD MP.
