NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) said that it has seized assets worth Rs 10.28 crore of Shravan Gupta, former MD of realty major Emaar MGF, in connection with its FEMA probe in the HSBC black money list unearthed a few years ago.
The central probe agency said in a statement it has taken the action against Gupta under the Foreign Exchange Management Act for “holding $15,40,650 in his bank account maintained with HongKong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in Switzerland”.
The ED said it has seized an agricultural land worth over Rs 10.27 crore in Delhi’s Bijwasan area as an equivalent amount of the asset held abroad.
“The seizure order has been issued pursuant to investigation which revealed that prima facie Gupta had foreign exchange held to the tune of $15,40,650 in his bank account in HongKong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Switzerland, situated outside India in contravention of provisions of Section 4 of FEMA, 1999.
“Gupta had not shown this amount in the Income Tax returns filed in India for the period 2006-07. However, he had declared this amount in 2011-12 and paid appropriate taxes,” the ED said in a statement.
It added that Gupta “failed to produce any evidence of repatriating the entire amount to India till date.”
It added that the I-T Department had also filed a chargesheet against him in this case.
In 2005, Emaar Properties entered Indian real estate market in partnership with India’s MGF group and invested Rs 8,500 crore through the joint venture Emaar MGF Land.
However, in April 2016, it decided to end this JV and two months later Gupta, the then executive vice chairman & managing director of the JV, resigned from the post.
The agency added that the competent authority of the FEMA has also “confirmed” a similar seizure order of Rs 20.87 crore assets of Dabur group director Pradip Burman.
These cases are part of the list of 628 Indians who figured in a list of account holders in HSBC’s Geneva branch that India had obtained from the French government in 2007.
Source: Press Trust of India