Yes Bank: CBI books Rana Kapoor’s wife and three daughters

PTI, Mar 10, 2020, 9:29 AM IST

New Delhi: The CBI has booked Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor’s wife and three daughters over allegations he received kickbacks through scam-hit DHFL’s Rs 600 crore loan to a family-owned company and searched seven locations including their homes in Mumbai, the agency said on Monday.

The action by the CBI in which seven individuals including Kapoor, 62, his wife Bindu and daughters Roshini, Raakhe and Radha and five companies were named as accused in its FIR came even as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) expanded its money laundering probe against the arrested banker.

As the purported foreign assets of Kapoor and multi-crore loans issued by Yes Bank to corporate houses that turned a Non-Performing Asset (NPA) came under the ED scanner, agency sources said the bank CEO Ravneet Gill was questioned at its office in Mumbai.

In what may calm harried depositors of Yes Bank, its administrator Prashant Kumar said he is hopeful of the moratorium on the private sector lender being lifted by Saturday.

Yes Bank has been put under a moratorium by the RBI till April 3, during which customers are not allowed to withdraw more than Rs 50,000. The bank will also not be able to grant or renew any loan or advance, make any investment, incur any liability or agree to disburse any payment.

Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL) and RKW Developers Private Limited and their then directors Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan, respectively also figure as accused.

DoIT Urban Ventures controlled by the Kapoor family, RAB Enterprises (India) Private Limited in which Bindu Rana Kapoor was the director and Morgan Credits Private Ltd in which Rana Kapoor’s daughters were directors were named as accused.

While 10 teams of the CBI were involved in its search operations spread across swanky south Mumbai neighbourhood, the agency issued Look Out Circular(LOC) against all the seven accused -Kapoors and Wadhawans – named in the FIR.

A LOC alerts immigration staff at all the ports of entry and exit to prevent the accused from moving out of the country.

The ED, which arrested Kapoor, had already got a LOC issued on the basis of which Roshini was on Sunday stopped from leaving for London at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, Mumbai.

The CBI searches took place at the lavish apartment of Kapoor in the famous ‘Samudra Mahal’ building in Worli, besides residences of his daughters Raakhe and Radha in the up-market NCPA complex, Nariman Point, besides Wadhawan’s home at Sea View, Palace Hills, officials said.

The offices of DHFL, DoIT Ventures and RKW developers were also searched, they added.

The CBI and the ED are investigating how DHFL loaned Rs 600 crore to a firm “controlled” by Kapoor’s family in lieu of allegedly not recovering over Rs 4,000 crore loan issued by the Yes Bank to the former.

Kapoor’s lawyer on Sunday alleged before a Mumbai court that the banker has been selectively targeted by the ED. The lawyer also said he is cooperating with the probe agency. Kapoor has been remanded in ED’s custody till March 11.

An ED official said the agency has widened its probe in the case beyond the DHFL loan and is now looking at its books to find out evidence if more kickbacks apart from Rs 600 crore were received by the Kapoor family from other business houses in lieu of not initiating loan recovery processes.

The official said the investigators have also zeroed in on Kapoor’s purported foreign assets in the UK, France and the US to see if the proceeds of crime of money laundering were used to purchase these assets by the banker and his family.

As the Yes Bank crisis assumed political overtones, the BJP took a swipe at Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra over her sale of a painting to Rana Kapoor as it dubbed her and her husband Robert Vadra as “Bunty and Babli” of politics, alleging they have ingenious ways of making money from assets of others.

The Congress has rejected the BJP’s charge as fake, saying there was no illegality in the transaction as the party general secretary had received the money (Rs 2 crore) in cheque and mentioned it in her income tax filings in 2010.

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi answer as to who was responsible for the Yes Bank crisis instead of adopting diversionary tactics by raising the sale of the painting.