Chennai, May 5 (). VP Nandakumar, managing director of Manappuram Finance Ltd, on Friday said that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has seized shares worth about Rs 2,000 crore and not about Rs 143 crore.
The ED on Thursday said it had recently carried out searches at six premises in Kerala’s Thrissur belonging to Manappuram Finance Ltd and its MD Nandakumar and frozen Rs 143 crore lying in various accounts.
The searches were conducted as part of the probe under the PMLA into allegations of money laundering by illegal collection of deposits from the public. The ED’s searches resulted in evidence of money laundering and large-scale cash transactions in the form of public deposits, allegedly done by Nandakumar through his proprietary firm, Manappuram Agro Farms (MARGO), without RBI approval.
In a clarification to the board of Manappuram Finance, Nandakumar said: The shares that have been frozen by the Enforcement Directorate are worth around Rs 2,000 crore, but the value attributed to them is around Rs 140 crore. I am reviewing my legal options in this matter, but I wanted to provide you with a written update on the matter.
He said, first of all, the total amount of pending deposits to which the matter relates (as I have stated) is less than Rs 10 lakh, which is lying in the escrow account. Nandakumar said MARGO used to accept deposits from people living in and around Valapad, where his family had done business for over 60 years, and pay them interest.
The total amount of deposits outstanding as on February 1, 2012 was Rs 143.85 crore, which was fully and duly recorded in the books of MARGO, their letter said. According to Nandakumar, upon receipt of communication from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in 2012, MARGO had stopped accepting deposits, renewing and making deposits and decided to repay all its deposits.
He said- In March 2012, I raised an amount of Rs 159,45,62,582 for repayment of deposits through sale of shares in (company). As on December 31, 2022, MARGO has repaid a total deposit of Rs 143.76 crore and the total outstanding amount remaining in Escrow amount is only Rs 9,24,693. This balance is outstanding only because some depositors have failed to claim their respective deposits.
Nandakumar claimed that the ED’s visit was in pursuance of an FIR lodged by a person in connection with accepting deposits as a default of over 10 years.
KC/ANM
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