New Delhi, May 22
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday carried out searches at the homes and offices of four former directors of the crisis-struck infrastructure lending major IL&FS in Mumbai over connection with an alleged money-laundering case. The agency is carrying out searches on the premises of Rajesh Kotian, Shehzad Dilan, Manu Kochhar and Mukund Sapre. The ED had earlier done similar searches in the case in February after it had filed a criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The IL&FS has a total debt of around Rs 91,000 crore and its new board led by Uday Kotak is trying to sell its assets to repay the debt. The crisis came to light in September last year after the group defaulted on few of its commercial papers. Eventually, the government took control of the heavily indebted group in October and set up a new board to manage the company and sail it through the resolution process. The issue has also raised doubts over the role of its top level officials along with the credit rating agencies. Investigations are on at several fronts.Earlier this month, IANS had reported that the Ministry of Corporate Affairs is concerned about the extent of the wrongdoing in IL&FS when Ravi Parthasarthy was its Chairman and the Ministry is looking at expanding the scope of its ongoing probe to independent directors during that time. This includes many names like R.C. Bhargava, Chairman Maruti Suzuki and S.B. Mathur, former Chairman LIC.
