New Delhi [India], September 13 : Businessman Gautam Thapar who was arrested in an alleged bank loan fraud case, has moved a bail petition in a Delhi Court. Thapar was recently arrested in an alleged bank loan fraud case, currently going in Judicial custody. The hearing on the bail plea on Monday adjourned for September 17, due to the non-availability of the concerned judge. ED in last month had arrested Avantha Group promoter Gautam Thapar in a money laundering case following searches at multiple locations in Delhi and Mumbai. The bail application was filed by a team from Karanjawala & Co. Sandeep Kapur, Senior Partner along with Vivek Suri, Rajat Soni, Niharika Karanjawala Misra, Mridul Yadav, Apoorva Pandey, GG Kashyap, Abhimanshu Dhyani, Sidhant Singh & Sahil Modi. The team had briefed Vijay Aggarwal, advocate to appear on behalf of Gautam Thapar. Recently Delhi High Court had sought responses of Enforcement Directorate (ED) on two applications moved by Avantha Group promoter, Gautam Thapar arrested in an alleged bank loan fraud case, challenging the grounds of his arrest and also sought a copy of the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) registered against him. According to the ED, an ECIR was registered against Gautam Thapar, Avantha Realty Ltd., Oyster Buildwell Pvt. Ltd. and others, alleging criminal breach of trust, cheating, criminal conspiracy and forgery for diversion/ misappropriation of public money during the period 2017 to 2019. Earlier, ED told the Delhi Court: “Investigation revealed that approximately Rs 500.11 crores proceeds of crime, were laundered through Oyster Buildwell Pvt Ltd (OBPL), Jhabua Power Limited (JPL), Jhabua Power Investment Ltd. (JPIL), Avantha Power and Infrastructure Ltd (APIL), Avantha Realty Ltd. (ARL) etc. which are being controlled and beneficially owned directly or indirectly by Gautam Thapar.” ED told the court that the probe disclosed that the same agreements were made by these entities to fraudulently obtain huge amounts running into more than Rs 500 crores from Yes Bank and further by different modes of layering the tainted amount was laundered and the loan account thus turned NPA causing a loss of huge public money.
