ED attaches assets worth Rs 70 cr of IPL team, St Xavier’s College, others

NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate on Monday attached assets worth over Rs 70 crore in connection with the multi-thousand crore Rose Valley chit fund case, including the bank accounts of the company that owns Shah Rukh Khan’s IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders and those of St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, the agency said. Officials here said the other entity whose assets were attached was Multiple Resorts Private Limited and the total attachment was of assets worth around Rs 70.11 crore.

The ED had alleged that St. Xavier’s College had received donations worth around Rs 1.13 crore from the Gautam Kunduowned Rose Valley Group in the form of sponsorships. While the erstwhile College principal was questioned earlier in the case and had said that he would return the money, one offi- cial added that there appears to be no malicious intent in the matter.

However, sources familiar with developments maintained that the probe is now also looking into the accounts of the St Xavier’s Alumni Association, which had allegedly received around Rs 5 crore in donations as sponsorships. “The books of the association seem to have irregularities and some documents pertaining to it have not been submitted to us by the concerned authorities so we are investigating that now,” one official told Millennium Post.

One erstwhile Alumni Association official, however, said the accounts had been balanced when the ED had first raised the issue a few years ago and that the Association had returned the funds.

The bank accounts of the three entities, that have been attached, have deposits totalling Rs 16.20 crore, with Rs 11.87 crore funds in the account of Knight Riders Sports Private Limited, which owns KKR and its directors include Shah Rukh Khan’s wife Gauri Khan, actor Juhi Chawla’s husband Jay Mehta, KKR CEO Venkatesh Mysore and two others. Mysore was also questioned in this case by ED in October last year.

The agency has also attached 24 acres of land at Ramnagar and Mahishdal in Purba Medinipur

district of West Bengal, a flat at Dilkap Chambers in Mumbai, an acre of land at Jyoti Basu Nagar and a hotel of the Rose Valley group in Kolkata, it said.

The ED registered an FIR against the Rose Valley group, its chairman Gautam Kundu and others under the PMLA in 2014. Kundu was arrested by the agency in Kolkata in 2015 and is in judicial custody at present. The ED has filed multiple charge-sheet in Kolkata and Bhubaneswar courts in this connection and total attachments, in this case, are now worth Rs 4,750 crore.