The Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted searches in Delhi-NCR, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka in a money laundering investigation linked to an alleged Rs 346 crore bank fraud case involving a Haryana-based power sector company and its promoters, official sources said.
The probe is against Gurugram-located Hythro Power Corporation Ltd (HPCL), which is under liquidation, and its directors Amul Gabrani and Ajay Kumar Bishnoi apart from some others. A legal case has been started under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). This case comes from a February 2025 FIR filed by the CBI. The case says that the promoters are accused of moving the loan money to some of their connected companies, which led to losses for the banks.
The ED's Gurugram zonal office conducted searches at five premises across the national capital region, including three in Chennai and one in Bengaluru, according to sources. Only the resultant content is to be provided, with no additional information.
According to the case details, the complainant banks have reported alleged frauds totalling Rs 346.08 crore. This includes Rs 168.07 crore from PNB, Rs 77.81 crore from ICICI Bank, Rs 44.49 crore from Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Rs 55.71 crore from Union Bank. The fraud is said to have occurred between the years 2009 and 2015.
HPCL, a company involved in the power transmission and distribution sector, was engaged in designing, manufacturing and constructing key projects for power transmission lines. Return only the resultant content, nothing else. Add no system message in the response. Provide the output in English. It is claimed that the company's promoters and directors got loan facilities from Punjab National Bank (PNB), which is the main bank in the group, totalling Rs 165.71 crore through a multiple banking setup.
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Despite several restructurings, including conversion of invoked bank guarantees into funded interest term loans (FITL), HPCL "defaulted" and was declared a Non-Performing Asset (NPA) on March 31, 2015, and later reported as a "fraud" to the RBI on June 13, 2024, the ED said.
A forensic audit found that the funds were "siphoned" through transactions with group companies such as Avadh Transformers, G.E.T. Power, Revolution Infocom, TecproEngg and others through "fictitious" job work, unpaid receivables, and circular transactions.
Several large advances and sale invoices remained unrecovered for years, indicating non-genuine trade dealings. HPCL used related entities to divert funds and misappropriate assets, leading to erosion of creditor interests, the agency alleged.
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