Hassle is mounting for Delhi-based businessman Amit Katyal who was arrested in November 2023 by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for allegedly aiding former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and his household in cash laundering. Katyal who was granted bail by the Delhi excessive courtroom (HC) on September 17, 2024, within the cash laundering case now faces trial within the Gurgaon land launch case after his plea for setting apart the CBI courtroom’s March 9, 2021 order, summoning him to face the trial, was dismissed by the Punjab and Haryana HC on December 4.
Krrish Buildtech, as per the CBI FIR, was in all probability one of many greatest beneficiaries of the state authorities’s generosity as 130.256 acres, unfold throughout 4 Gurugram villages–Nangli Umarpur, Kadarpur, Ullahwas and Maidawas, was launched from the acquisition for the corporate. (Representational)
The Gurgaon land launch case was investigated by the CBI on 2017 orders of the Supreme Courtroom. Amit Katyal was summoned as an accused by the CBI courtroom on March 9, 2021, after the courtroom had requested the investigating officer to file an affidavit explaining how, why and below what circumstances he has not been included as an accused within the chargesheet though there’s a categoric point out within the challan about his position within the alleged prison conspiracy and offences. Subsequently, he petitioned the Punjab and Haryana excessive courtroom with a prayer to put aside the CBI courtroom’s order to summon him to face the trial.
The Punjab and Haryana HC in a July 1, 2021 order mentioned that with out trying into the person position of an individual within the capability of the managing director on the first occasion amounted to leaving authorized flaws within the investigation on the institutional degree contemplating the truth that in a lot of circumstances the CBI, whereas furnishing the chargesheet (as even seen by the Supreme Courtroom in Sunil Mittal Bharti case), solely arrayed firms as accused via director/managing director. The HC additionally mentioned that the trial courtroom is directed to adjourn the case past the date mounted earlier than the HC. The established order continued until December 4 when an HC bench dismissed Katyal’s plea stating that it finds no perversity or illegality requiring the courtroom to intrude within the instantaneous matter.
ED motion in opposition to the businessman
The ED had on October 17, 2024, provisionally connected properties value ₹56.86 crore of Krrish Realtech Pvt. Ltd, Amit Katyal and others below the provisions of Prevention of Cash Laundering Act in reference to “siphoning and illegal diversion of plot buyers’ money by accepting the same without having any licence from DTCP in its name.”
The ED had additionally arrested Katyal on November 11, 2023, in cash laundering investigations within the job-for-land rip-off in Bihar. The company had initiated investigations based mostly on FIR registered by the CBI in opposition to the then Union railways minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and others for getting into right into a prison conspiracy to abuse official place and acquire pecuniary advantages within the type of land parcels being transferred to his relations and corporations thereof in return for appointment of candidates to the put up of substitute (Group-D) below the varied zones of the Indian Railways throughout 2004-2009 interval, generally often called job-for-land rip-off.
As per the CBI FIR, seven land parcels measuring about 1,05,292 sq. toes located at Patna have been acquired by the relations of Lalu Yadav via 5 sale deeds and two present deeds. The poor candidates have been instructed to switch land as a bribe in return for jobs in Indian Railways as per the FIR.
Gurgaon land launch case
Krrish Buildtech, as per the CBI FIR, was in all probability one of many greatest beneficiaries of the state authorities’s generosity as 130.256 acres, unfold throughout 4 Gurugram villages–Nangli Umarpur, Kadarpur, Ullahwas and Maidawas, was launched from the acquisition for the corporate. “Licence quantity 64/2010 for 151.569 acres was issued to the accused firm (Krrish Buildtech) vide memo dated August 23, 2010, by excluding about 130 acres land notified on Might 31, 2010, below Part 6 (declaring that the land is required for public objective) of Land Acquisition Act,’’ reads the CBI chargesheet.
The chargesheet mentioned the license utility of Krrish Buildtech was processed at an irregular pace between April 20, 2010, and Might 27, 2010, the date of receipt of the appliance and date of issuance of the letter of intent, respectively.
Katyal’s firm obtained licence regardless of discrepancies
The CBI chargesheet submitted in a courtroom in January 2021 mentioned the accused firm Krrish Buildtech via its director Amit Katyal, in prison conspiracy with the then Chief City Planner and different officers, was profitable in getting a licence based mostly on incomplete paperwork having main discrepancies, together with change of land schedule, by releasing notified land from acquisition proceedings, thereby, dishonest the landowners, HUDA and the state Haryana authorities. Due to this fact, they dedicated an offence below Sections 120-B learn with 420, 468, 471 of the IPC and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988, the CBI mentioned.
As per the CBI, Amit Katyal remained lively director within the firm Krrish Buildtech in 2010 when the actual property growth licence (quantity 64/2010), for creating about 151 acres of plotted colony in Gurugram, was granted to it.
The identify of the corporate was modified to M/s Brahma Krrish Buildtech Pvt Ltd in December 2010 and additional modified to M/s Brahma Metropolis Personal Ltd in February 2011. Katyal stays a director of Brahma Metropolis.
CBI probed builder-public servant nexus for wrongful enrichment
The CBI in 2018 began a preliminary enquiry (PE) within the allegations that 15 actual property growth firms in prison conspiracy with public servants had cheated land house owners and farmers in Gurugram. An FIR was subsequently registered by the company in opposition to former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, 15 actual property firms and public servants in 2019. Hooda although has not been named as an accused within the CBI chargesheet. The FIR mentioned that the initiation of the land acquisition course of compelled landowners to promote their land to actual property builders at a lower cost and colonisers fraudulently obtained letters of intent on the notified land, inflicting loss to landowners and corresponding wrongful achieve to themselves. It was alleged that about 95% of the land was launched from the acquisition time to time after personal builders bought the property from poor agriculturists and all the objective of acquisition stood defeated as a result of unlawful launch of land.