UPAera loan default: ED raids firm in Gujarat
NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate on Saturday raided the premises of a Gujarat-based company which allegedly defaulted on an estimated ₹1,700-crore loan from public sector banks during the previous UPA government’s tenure.
The group’s flagship company Sterling Biotech is one of the top 10 defaulters of public sector (PSU) banks and the loan was declared a non-performing asset (NPA) in 2012.
Though the loan default is cited as the official reason for the raids, multiple sources said the government suspects the group of mobilising funds for the August 8 Rajya Sabha elections.
The ED is yet to make an official statement.
“Sandesara group siphoned off substantial amount of bank money through bogus exports and parked in offshore companies in Nigeria, US and Dubai. This is part of the government’s crackdown on wilful defaulters,” a source in the ED’s Gujarat unit told Hindustan Times on condition of anonymity.
Nitin Sandesara, group chairman and managing director, did not respond to text messages and phone calls from HT.
In the RS elections from Gujarat, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel, a close aide of party president Sonia Gandhi, is the opposition candidate and is pitted against a former party leader who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party recently along with two other MLAs.
The Congress has accused the BJP of using money and muscle power to lure its MLAs ahead of the polls.
BJP president Amit Shah and Union minister Smriti Irani are also in the fray.
The Congress flew 42 of its Gujarat MLAs last week to a resort in Bengaluru to prevent the BJP from poaching them.
Three days ago, income tax officials raided properties of a Karnataka minister who is hosting the Gujarat MLAs at the resort. The Congress termed the raids a “witch hunt”.
A bank employees’ union, which had first raised the issue of NPAs on PSU banks, had cited the Sandesara group as an instance of poor loan assessment.
The group was allegedly given loan with significantly insufficient collateral.