New Delhi: Former Haryana minister Gopal Goyal Kanda, who has been accused in a fresh Enforcement Directorate chargesheet of receiving Rs 54 crore illegally from homebuyers’ fund, has said his ability to defend himself was limited by the Delhi Police seizing his documents in a 2012 raid against him.
Notably, Kanda, then the minister of state in the Haryana’s home department, was booked and arrested by the Delhi Police in a case of abetment of suicide of a former employee with his aviation firm, Geetika Sharma.
In its prosecution complaint in the Rs 54-crore case, the agency claimed funds collected by Gurugram-based Universal Buildwell Pvt Ltd for stalled housing projects were diverted to companies linked to Kanda.
Sources aware of the case details said that seven firms of Kanda, the president of the Haryana Lokhit Party (LHP), received funds siphoned off from Universal Buildwell Pvt Ltd by its promoters and the director trio of Raman Puri, Vikram Puri, and Varun Puri.
The three were arrested in July last year by the ED, which alleges that the trio collected more than Rs 1,000 crore from homebuyers over 12 years for eight real estate projects in Gurugram and Faridabad.
However, none of those projects materialised, as construction has been halted since 2010, and the company went into insolvency before the National Company Law Tribunal.
A businessman with considerable sway in Sirsa district, Kanda was defeated by Congress’s Gokul Setia in the 2024 Assembly elections in the state. He faced defeat even though the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party withdrew its candidate from the constituency to support his poll prospects.
Kanda first hit the headlines after his name surfaced in the abetment of the suicide case of former air hostess Geetika Sharma in 2012. She was 23 then. Kanda was arrested by the Delhi Police in the case after a dramatic sequence of events, but was acquitted of all charges by a court here in 2023.
As for the ED, the Rs 54-crore case is the second such action by the agency against him. He was earlier charged by the agency in a similar money laundering probe related to siphoning off public money by real estate firm Supertech and its promoter R K Arora.
Before that, Kanda was also charged by the agency, alleging collusion with the promoter of the Supertech group, R K Arora, and pocketing proceeds of crime amounting to Rs 49.67 crore through a bogus deed to obtain a licence for the land from the Haryana government for land purchased from Kanda’s firm. However, he was discharged from the case in September last year.
ThePrint reached out to Kanda and his lawyer Mohit Phogat through calls and texts on WhatsApp but there was no response. The report will be updated if and when they respond.
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Geetika Sharma suicide case
The Geetika Sharma case also featured during the probe in the Rs 54-crore scam case, sources said, adding that Kanda used the Delhi Police raids as an alibi to claim that documents related to his dealings with the UBPL and its promoters were taken away during the 2012 raids.
Kanda appeared before the ED’s investigating officer only after the agency moved the special PMLA court in Gurugram following his failure to respond to the summons. However, sources said Kanda had first met Raman Puri around 2009-10, as both were in the real estate business.
“Kanda claimed that Raman Puri wanted to purchase a land measuring 13 acres along with the company, which housed his (Kanda’s) firm Shivganesh Buildcon Pvt Ltd. Following finalisation of the terms of the deal, Kanda said he transferred the said land to Puri for Rs. 61 Crores, out of which only Rs. 4 Crores stood outstanding,” an official privy to the case details told ThePrint.
However, when asked to present the documents to establish his claims, Kanda cited police raids in 2012 and claimed the documents related to this deal were taken away during the raids so he could not submit the details of the agreement, the sources further said.
Kanda was the former promoter and director of Shivganesh Buildcon Private Limited, according to the Enforcement Directorate, which also allegedly found that UBPL acquired shares of Shivganesh Buildcon held by Kanda and director in the firm, Jwala Prasad Agarwal, for Rs 5.02 crore.
The transaction made Shivganesh Buildcon a wholly owned subsidiary of UBPL, the agency official said.
“A detailed examination of the Books of Account of Universal Buildwell Pvt Ltd & Shivganesh Buildcon Pvt Ltd, (showed) that funds of homebuyers and allottees received by Universal Buildwell Pvt Ltd had been fraudulently transferred to Shivganesh Buildcon Pvt Ltd before it was further diverted to companies linked to Kanda’s entities.
“Out of the total proceeds of crime, which are yet to be finalised, Kanda’s firm received Rs. 54.58 Crores,” the official said.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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