india

Updated: Sep 06, 2019 01:05 IST

A Delhi court on Thursday sent Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath’s nephew, Ratul Puri, in six-day custody of the Enforcement Directorate.

The ED said it has found several payments running into thousands of Euros and US dollars received by Puri via different companies in the AgustaWestland scam.

Terming Puri a “habitual offender”, who is under scanner in many other instances of economic offences, the ED told the special CBI judge Arvind Kumar that the arrested businessman ran shell companies in the names of others for accumulation of proceeds of crime, which have been parked and laundered to reach the desired beneficiaries.

It listed three payments. A transfer of Euro 948,862.04 which accused-turned-approver Rajiv Saxena allegedly received from Global Services FZE on behalf of Ratul Puri, and two payments of Euro 704134.57 and US dollars 150,000 allegedly received by five companies – M/s Technostone Limited, M/s Trade Service Agency, M/s Hendon Global Limited, M/s Prodexco Iberia Limited and M/s Melleger Ltd – from Interstellar Technologies Limited, Mauritius. These five companies, ED said, belong to/are maintained/used for the benefit of Puri. For the transfers, he gave instructions to Rajiv Saxena via emails – which have been identified as ratul.puri@hpppl.in, nokiasamsung35@yahoo.co.uk and nokiasamsung35@yahoo.com, the ED added. In some of the emails, the ED’s counsel, D P Singh, showed the court the agency has even found Puri’s mobile number.

Puri’s lawyer, Vijay Aggarwal, refuted the ED claims saying, “Puri has no concern with any of the companies and the email IDs mentioned by the agency.” He termed the arrest as “illegal” claiming that in violation of the law, ED did not provide the grounds of arrest for his client.

An ED official, requesting anonymity, also told HT that in its second probe against Puri related to Moser Baer, it has found transfers worth over ₹2,000 crore which need further investigation.