ED takes possession of South Delhi asset in money laundering probe against Sanjay Bhandari

PTI, Oct 17, 2023, 12:25 PM IST

The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday issued eviction orders and took possession of an expensive south Delhi property as part of an ongoing money laundering probe against alleged middleman and arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari, currently based in the UK.

The property is situated at the Panchsheel shopping complex in Panchsheel Park and is registered in the name of S B Hospitality and Services Pvt. Ltd. The company has been struck off from the records of the Registrar of Companies and the ED feels the assets of this non-existing company can be ”alienated”.

The asset, as per a public ED notice accessed by PTI, belongs to Bhandari (61) and was attached by the agency in June, 2017 and finally the order was confirmed by the Appellate Tribunal of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on July 5.

The possession of the property has been taken under sub section (4) of section (8) of the PMLA.

Bhandari is stated by the ED to have ”absconded” to the UK in 2016 and declared a proclaimed offender by a special PMLA court in the money laundering case linked to possession of alleged undisclosed assets abroad.

The UK government had approved Bhandari’s extradition to India in January this year acting on the legal request made by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation, which are probing charges of money laundering and tax evasion against Bhandari for holding alleged undisclosed assets abroad.

The ED said it was taking possession of the asset as it believes that Bhandari’s assets in India have a ”fair chance of being illegal occupied by land grabbers” even as it has come to its knowledge that Bhandari ”tried to alienate his properties by way of creating structure and back dated documents”.

The agency has served an eviction notice to concerned entities linked to this property in September stating they are ”prohibited and restrained until further order from transferring or charging the property by sale, gift, mortgage, pledge or otherwise in any manner whatsoever…” The ED filed a criminal case of money laundering against him and others in February, 2017 taking cognisance of an Income Tax Department charge sheet filed against him under the anti-black money law of 2015. It filed a charge sheet against him in 2020.

The agency is also probing his role in another money laundering case linked to alleged corruption in the purchase of 75 Pilatus basic trainer aircraft for the Indian Air Force (IAF) in 2009.