New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Pranav Gupta and Vineet Gupta, managing director and ‘whole time director’ respectively of Chandigarh-based Parabolic Drugs Ltd, on charges of money laundering. Both individuals are also among the co-founders of the private institution Ashoka University, situated in Haryana’s Sonipat.
In a statement issued Saturday, Ashoka University clarified that it is in no way linked to Parabolic Drugs Ltd.
“Ashoka University has no past or current relationship with Parabolic Drugs, the company being investigated, and any attempt to create a link is without any basis and misleading.
Vineet and Pranav Gupta are two among the more than 200 founders and donors of Ashoka University, who have contributed to Ashoka’s creation and growth in their personal philanthropic capacity and whose individual businesses have absolutely no bearing on the university,” it said.
Besides the two, the ED also arrested one S.K. Bansal, a chartered accountant, in connection with the same case, lodged under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. The arrests came a day after the agency raided 17 locations in Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Panchkula and Ambala in connection with the case.
The ED’s probe against the drugmaker stems from a case lodged against it by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in December 2021 in which the top management of Parabolic Drugs Ltd was accused of defrauding a consortium of banks led by Central Bank of India to the tune of Rs 1,626.74 crore.
The ED lodged an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), its equivalent of an FIR, in 2022.
According to the CBI’s FIR, a copy of which is with ThePrint, the consortium accused the drugmaker and its promoters of criminal conspiracy, cheating, criminal breach of trust and criminal misconduct.
The FIR was lodged under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc.), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
On its website, Parabolic Drugs Ltd describes itself as a “vertically integrated, research based, Pharmaceutical manufacturer and exporter, specialising in development and manufacturing of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) and API intermediates”.
Ashoka University, of which Pranav Gupta and Vineet Gupta are co-founders, was embroiled in a controversy earlier this year after an associate professor then with the university authored a controversial research paper suggesting voter manipulation in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
It was also one of three private universities in Sonipat who were served a show-cause notice by the Haryana government last year over alleged violations of guidelines.
This is an updated version of the report.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)