ED quizzes Chandra in YES Bank case

nMUMBAI : Essel Group chairman Subhash Chandra appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday. He had been summoned by the agency in connection with their ongoing money laundering probe against YES Bank promoter Rana Kapoor and his family.

A statement issued by the group read, “Essel Group wishes to confirm that Dr. Subhash Chandra visited the ED office in Mumbai today and answered all the queries of the officials, to the best of his abilities. He offered complete co-operation in the future as well.”

ED had summoned Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan of Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL); Naresh Goyal of Jet Airways; Anil Ambani of Reliance Group; Subhash Chandra of Essel Group; Sameer Gehlaut of Indiabulls Housing Finance Limited and Gautam Thapar of Avantha Realty in connection with the money laundering case against YES bank.

The agency has been probing the circumstances in which loans were granted to corporates. It has accused YES Bank’s Kapoor, his family and others of laundering “proceeds of crime” amounting to ~4,300 crore by receiving kickbacks in lieu of extending big loans through their bank that later became non-performing assets.

Earlier in the week, Chandra tweeted, “Essel Group has never made any transactions with Mr. Rana Kapoor or his family or for

that matter any private entities controlled by them.” An earlier statement by the group read, “The Group wishes to clarify that most of the credit facilities were availed for its infrastructure business and there is no debt on ZEEL, ZMCL, etc,” adding that all credit facilities it had availed were fully secured.

In a March 6 press conference, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that the Anil Ambani Group, Essel, ILFS, DHFL and Vodafone were among the stressed corporates Yes Bank had exposure to.