Coal news and updates

ED attaches Rs 186 cr of Navabharat assets in coal scam

In what could be the biggest attachment in the coal blocks scam so far, the Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday attached property worth Rs 186 crore belonging to Hyderabad-based Navabharat Power Projects Pvt Ltd, an accused in the CBI case.

NPPL was charged with misrepresenting facts and making fraudulent claims to gain eligibility to bid and get coal blocks between 2006-09. The CBI's case is that immediately after the allocation of coal blocks, NPPL promoters and shareholders sold off their entire shareholdings in July 2010 to Essar Power Ltd at a profit of over Rs 200 crore.

The ED, which scans the trail of fraud money under the provisions of the prevention of money laundering Act, termed this as windfall gain by two NPPL directors, C Trivikram Prasad and Y Harischandra Prasad, in the coal scam. ED authorities, who identified and tracked the journey of Rs 186 crore of the scam money, said Trivikram reinvested around Rs 148 crore he gained in the scam in a company called Nava Bharat Energy India Ltd and the authorities attached shares worth Rs 138.59 crore in the company.

The other director, Harischandra Prasad, invested Rs 45 crore in wind turbine generators in Rajasthan through his firm Malaxmi Wind Power. ED authorities attached these assets to the extent of Rs 36 crore.

The ED found that nearly Rs 11 crore of the scam money went into the making of a Tamil film called Rajapattai. This film was produced by PVP Global Ventures of Potluri Vara Prasad. On questioning by the Hyderabad zone authorities, Potluri said this was the money returned to him by Prasad who took the money as loan from him earlier. However, when ED wanted to attach this money, Potluri said he had spent this money for producing the Tamil film. The ED then attached 28 acres of land in Nadergul village in Ranga Reddy belonging to M/s Adobe Realtors Pvt Ltd, a 100% subsidiary of PVP Global Ventures.

Source: The Times of India