Indiabulls Housing Finance Terms Rs 98,000-Crore Siphoning Charges As ‘Bizarre’

Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd. has refuted the allegation of siphoning Rs 98,000-crore, terming it as “bizarre” and made by a “racket of blackmailers”.

The total loan book size of Indiabulls Housing Finance is about Rs 90,000 crore, so the allegation of siphoning Rs 98,000 crore is “bizarre”, the non-bank lender said in a statement. Also, over the last two months the company has been receiving extortion threats from “a racket of blackmailers,” threatening to write complaints to various government departments alleging siphoning Rs 55,000 crore, unless Rs 10 crore was paid to them, it said in a statement.

The original complaint (Rs 55,000 crore) by the blackmailers was dated May 6, 2019, the statement said. After that the company filed a first information report on June 4.

“When demands of the person who was the original complainant were not met, he thereafter tried to extort money in lieu of withdrawing his complaint from various government departments,” Indiabulls Housing Finance said, adding this person was arrested on June 7.

Despite the arrest, “the group of people involved in the blackmailing racket” addressed another complaint on June 8 to government departments but increased the figure to Rs 98,000 crore, according to the statement.

BloombergQuint couldn’t independently verify these details.

Abhay Yadav, a shareholder of Indiabulls Housing Finance, filed a plea in the Supreme Court alleging that the company’s chairman Sameer Gehlaut created multiple “shell companies” to which the non-bank lender provided loans under “bogus and non-existent pretexts”. Around Rs 98,000 crore was siphoned for “exclusive personal use”, the petition said.

According to Indiabulls Housing Finance, police proceedings are ongoing in the case and courts have granted the police custody of the individual for six days. The company also wrote to various government departments on June 9, detailing the “blackmailing and extortion racket” and stating that one complainant bought two shares in the non-bank lender, while the second complainant [the writ petitioner] bought four shares on May 9.

This is “to get covered in the garb of shareholder whistleblowers” the company’s statement said. “We believe that the impending merger application with Laxmi Vilas Bank made us very easy target for the blackmailers given the sensitive regulatory process we are going through right now.”

The company said the writ petition filed on Monday is an attempt to divert attention from the ongoing police proceedings.