IL&FS scam: ED raids ex-auditors of firm

Mumbai: Sleuths of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday raided the premises of BSR and Associates and Deloitte Haskins and Sells, two former auditor firms of Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Litd (IL&FS) as part of a probe into alleged money laundering and other financial irregularities.

IL&FS had filed for bankruptcy in 2018 with an aggregate debt burden of more than Rs91,000 crore after senior management made illegal personal gains at the expense of the company by falsifying accounts and boosting the balance sheet, according to the chargesheet filed by the ED.

ED started the money-laundering probe into IL&FS in 2019

The debt burden and series of defaults of IL&FS group companies had threatened to lead to a collapse of money markets in India in 2018, according to reports. The government then took management control of IL&FS and appointed a new board in October 2018 to control defaults and restore confidence and financial stability in capital markets.

The Supreme Court had last week set aside a Bombay High Court verdict that quashed an SFIO probe against the two companies, paving the way for action against them under the Companies Act and allowing the National Company Law Tribunal to take forward its inquiry against IL&FS.

The ED had started the money-laundering probe into the alleged financial irregularities at IL&FS in 2019 after taking cognizance of an FIR filed by the Economic Offences Wing of Delhi Police against IL&FS group companies IRL and ITNL and their officials, among others.

The agency had arrested Arun Kumar Saha, a former member of the committee of directors of IFIN and Karunakaran Ramchand, former managing director of ITNL, and subsequently filed a chargesheet before a special PMLA court in Mumbai.

The federal agency also took cognisance of a complaint filed by the SFIO against IFIN and its officials and attached assets of various entities in the case.