The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on June 25 submitted its first charge sheet in a case registered against Yes Bank co-founder Rana Kapoor and promoters of Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DHFL) Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan. The document was submitted in a special CBI court.
The case pertains to suspicious transactions in 2018 between Kapoor and DHFL.
The investigating agency, which has been probing the case since March this year, named Kapoor, the Wadhawans, RKW Developers Private Limited and Doit Urban Venture India Private Limited (DUVPL) in the charge sheet.
The CBI registered the case on March 7 to probe the transactions between Kapoor and DHFL group firms under sections related to criminal conspiracy and cheating, following which the Enforcement Directorate (ED) registered a money-laundering case the same day. The ED arrested Kapoor on March 8.
Apart from DHFL and RKW, the probe also examined the alleged roles of Rana Kapoor's daughter Roshni Kapoor and two other firms associated with the Kapoors --- RAB Enterprises (India) Private Limited, and DUVPL - that were named as accused along with Kapoor and four of his family members in a charge sheet filed by the ED recently.
The CBI said initial investigations by its economic offence wing into alleged deals worth Rs 5,050 crore found the Kapoor family received kickbacks in exchange for giving Yes Bank loans to the Wadhawans of DHFL through various channels and in gross violation of rules. Kapoor used his many companies to get undue benefits from the Wadhawans after influencing Yes Bank to extend large loans to DHFL and other Wadhawan companies by flouting rules, according to the CBI.
The agency had on April 26 arrested Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan at Mahabaleshwar for their alleged involvement in the illegal transactions. The Wadhawans and Kapoor are in judicial custody and are currently lodged at Taloja Central Jail.
Between April and June 2018, Yes Bank had invested Rs 3,700 crore in short-term debentures of DHFL. Simultaneously, the Wadhawans allegedly paid a kickback of Rs 600 crore in the garb of loans to companies owned by Kapoor and his family. The DHFL loan to a Kapoor family-controlled firm, DOIT, was given on the basis of the latter’s mortgage of five properties that were acquired for only Rs 39.66 crore and by considering its future conversion from agricultural to residential land, it was alleged.
According to CBI sources, the assets' collective worth was allegedly assessed at Rs 485 crore by DHFL. Kapoor and the Wadhawans have denied allegations of any wrongdoing and that the Rs 600-crore loan was a kickback. Yes bank is yet to recover the said Rs 3,700 crore loan.
The CBI also examined another Yes bank-DHFL transaction in 2018 that pertained to the former’s grant of a Rs 750-crore loan to a firm allegedly controlled by the latter for a Bandra Reclamation redevelopment project. It was alleged that a portion of the loan was transferred to DHFL eventually.
Kapoor had moved the court for an anticipatory bail in the cases registered by the CBI. But the decision is yet to be taken by the court.
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