Ex-IL&FS chief Ravi Partharasarathy arrested for money laundering
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Chennai: Former Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) group chief Ravi Partharasarathy has been arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Chennai Police in connection with money laundering case. He is accused of running a Rs 1 lakh crore scam.
The FIR is filed on the basis of a complaint by 63 Moons Technologies Ltd after losing Rs. 200 crores. Other victims have also come forward with complaints. The Madras High Court dismissed the anticipatory bail petition filed by Parthasarathy.
The police called him the kingpin and the mastermind of the IL&FS scam. The IL&FS group consists of more than 350 group companies. Chennai police said that the group was used as a "vehicle to perpetrate fraud".
The police announced that all depositors and investors who lost their money can forward their claims to the Economic Offences Wing.
IL&FS collapsed in August 2018 after facing issues with debt repayments and liquidity. What started as a road construction company had grown to 347 subsidiaries. The company was defaulting on bonds that were due to investors by the time the crisis became public. It also had Rs 91,000 crore in debt.
The government had set up a panel in October 2018 to set the resolution process. Veteran banker Uday Kotak was put in charge.
The new board claims to have dealt with group debt of Rs. 43,000 crore through the sale of assets and other cash receivables. The quarterly update of the ongoing Group resolution process on April 15 stated that the debt recovery target was raised to Rs. 61,000 crore.
Last year, Kotak had said at the new board's first annual general meeting in 2020 that it expects to recover at least half of the debt through resolution.
