New Delhi:  Ahead of elections slated to be next year, there seems to be no stoppage on scam reports. In the most recent one, the Enforcement Directorate of India has attached assets of net worth Rupees 603 crore belonging to a Chhattisgarh-based company which was connected to a money laundering probe in the coal blocks allocation scam.

The central probe agency in a statement said, that it has attached, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act or PMLA, factory building, plant and machinery and 23 acres of land which belongs to Ms Vandana Vidyut Ltd located in Katghora area of Korba district in the state.

The Enforcement Directorate or ED took the crucial step of filing a criminal case under the PMLA based on a CBI FIR that was registered against the company and its directors.

The Directors of the company namely, Vinod Kumar Agrawal, Gopal Prasad Agrawal, Prahalad Kumar Agrawal and authorised signatory of the company Ambrish Kumar Gupta — misrepresented and concealed many facts in order to attain qualification for coal block allocation process and fraudulently obtained the allocation of Fatehpur East coal block in Chhattisgarh state, the Enforcement Directorate said in a statement.

The company that was run by these people was Ms Vandana Vidyut Ltd. The company had stated the net worth of its group of companies instead of its own net worth, and further concealed the fact that another coal block was also allocated by the Coal ministry to its group company Ms Vandana Global Ltd, the government agency alleged. The main for false representation of net worth was to claim the allocation of the coal block “fraudently”.

It also said that the 35^th Screening Committee and the officials of the Coal ministry did not follow the given guidelines and recommended the allocation of the Fatehpur East Coal Block to the company.

Currently, the Enforcement Directorate is investigating the coal blocks allocation case along with the Central Bureau of Intelligence.

There have been many such scams in the country for past some years. The main looser is the common man whose money is being used for such fraud loans. The widely covered Nirav Modi scam, in which the accused went offshore after defrauding the bank for ₹280 Crore (approximately USD 40 million) by conspiring with bank officials to fraudulently obtain Letters of Undertaking for making payments to overseas suppliers.

Kingfisher Airlines, which was launched by Vijaya Mallaya was established in 2005 and was a major business ventur. After a period of time it became insolvent and had to be closed down. As of October 2013, it had not paid salaries to its employees for for about 15 months, had also lost its licence to operate as an airline, and owed more than US$1 billion in bank loans.

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