Official sources said Thursday that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) detained Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal, directors of Gurugram-based realty business M3M, in a money laundering case related to an anti-corruption bureau case against a Panchkula-based former special court judge.
The agency arrested the two directors on Wednesday under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
They were arrested in connection with a Haryana anti-corruption bureau (ACB) FIR filed in April against the former special court judge, his nephew, and a third M3M group director, Roop Kumar Bansal.
According to the ACB FIR, the judge was accused of displaying favoritism in the ED and CBI proceedings against the directors of the M3M group and another real estate business called IREO.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court later suspended the judge.
All of those charged in the ACB case have denied any wrongdoing.
On June 1, the Enforcement Directorate raided the M3M promoters and others in connection with another money laundering investigation involving the IREO organization and its promoter Lalit Goyal.
Following that, the agency detained Roop Kumar Bansal, and the two other directors, Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal, were granted interim protection from arrest by the Delhi High Court in this case till July 5.
However, the ED has now arrested them in connection with the ACB-related money laundering case.
Following the June 1 raids, the agency published a statement claiming that a huge amount of money running into hundreds of crores was siphoned off through the M3M group in the case against the IREO group.
According to the allegations, the M3M Group got around Rs 400 crore from the IREO Group through various shell firms in multiple layers in one of the transactions.
