RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, June 9: The Special (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) court today allowed the ED to take Kolkata based businessmen Amit Agrawal and Dilip Ghosh in its remand for three days.
The order came on the ED’s petition demanding five-day remand of the duo.
Both the businessmen, arrested from Kolkata on June 7, had been produced in the court yesterday. The court forwarded them to judicial custody. Today during the hearing on the remand petition both were presented through video conferencing.
Amit Agarwal and Dilip Ghosh’s advocate Vidyut Chaurasia opposed the ED’s petition seeking remand. On the other hand, ED’s Special Public Prosecutor Shiv Kumar alias Kaka told the court that the people who have been arrested are masterminds of the land scam. In the investigation so far, Kaka added, many such things have come to the fore, about which inquiry is necessary.
So far it has come to the fore that Pradeep Bagchi sold the 4.55 acres of army land to Dilip Ghosh’s Jagat Bandhu Tea Estate, which is a shell company, and the amount deposited in the Estate’s account reached Agarwal’s company.
According to the ED’s remand petition, Jagat Bandhu Tea Estate, to whom Pradeep Bagchi sold land, is a shell company. “On 5 September 2020, a bank account was opened in the name of Jagat Bandhu Tea Estate. The company’s address is FMI HOUSE, F3, block GP, sector 5, Bidhannagar, Kolkata. This is the address of Amit Agarwal’s office. The account number of the bank account that has been opened is 10060532973. This account belongs to IDFC Bank. From 16 October 2020 to 25 July 2022, crores of rupees are transacted from this account, but the surprising thing is that out of 4 crores 69 lakh 80 thousand deposited in the account opened in the name of Jagat Bandhu Tea Estate, 4 crores 13 lakh 87 thousand rupees were transferred to the account of Rajesh Auto Merchandise Private Limited. Rajesh Auto Merchandise Private Limited is Amit Agarwal’s company. The money transaction has been done by persons named Vikas Jana and Dilip Shah and both these persons are employees of Amit Agarwal,” the ED source said.
The ED source further said: “Dilip Ghosh is the owner of the shell company Jagat Bandhu Tea Estate. He spent a total of Rs 83 lakh 3 thousand 368 as stamp duty for the registry of 4 acres 55 dismil lands registered as MS Plot-557. 62 lakh 34 thousand 460 rupees were given to the government as fees for this registry. That is, a total of more than one crore forty-five lakh rupees was paid as stamps and fees for the registry. Jagat Bandhu Tea State paid this amount because the fixed price of the land at the government rate is about 4 lakh 55 thousand rupees. But the deal for the entire plot (4.55 acres) was shown for Rs 7 crore only. “
“Pradeep Bagchi also accepted in front of the registration officer at the time of registration that he had received Rs 7 crore through cheque. But in this whole deal, Pradeep Bagchi got only Rs 25 lakh. The 11 checks mentioned in the registered deed were never cashed i.e. all the checks bounced. All the checks were of IDBI Bank. The cheque of the lowest amount was of 25 lakh rupees, whose number is 461153. The highest amount cheque is for 1 crore 25 lacks, whose number is 00011. Other cheques that were issued are numbered from 000003 to 000012. Apart from this, the amount of TDS was deducted from the account of Punjab National Bank which is of Delhi branch,” the ED source further said.
