Courtesy: Shiv Kumar | News Source: tribuneindia.com

The Mumbai police’s economic offences wing, which is investigating the PMC Bank scam, has unearthed suspected benami properties owned by bank’s former chairman Waryam Singh.

Apart from a five-star hotel in Amritsar’s Model Town area estimated to be worth around Rs 400 crore, which has been leased to Lemon Tree Hotels, nearly 40 acres of land in Gurugram and Himachal Pradesh have been traced to Singh, sources said.

Documents recovered during raids on Singh’s properties include some pertaining to a massive plot of land estimated to be worth more than Rs2,000 crore at Juhu in Mumbai, shares in listed companies worth more than Rs 100 crore and residential properties in Mumbai and Punjab. Police officials say some of the properties are registered in the names of different persons, raising the possibility that Waryam Singh may be their real owner. One of the owners has so far been identified as the son of Waryam Singh.

Preliminary valuations of the properties owned by Waryam Singh alone is estimated in excess of Rs 3,000 crore. Police say one Manmohan Singh Ahuja, allegedly a property dealer from Chandigarh, is suspected to be a key player in Singh’s real estate dealings. “We have issued summons to Ahuja and his questioning will throw light on Singh’s dealings,” an EOW source said.

Should the police establish that Singh has purchased the properties using funds siphoned from PMC Bank, these would be auctioned under the SARFAESI Act at the earliest, the sources said.

The forensic audit presently being conducted by Grant and Thornton engaged by the administrator of PMC Bank is expected to throw further light on funds siphoned from the bank by Singh and other office-bearers. Singh has confessed to diverting several thousand crores of PMC Bank’s funds to the Wadhawan family who are promoters of the controversial Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd. Singh was also a director of HDIL.