Shillong, October 27: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) initiated searches at 15 locations in Delhi, Punjab, Maharashtra, and Haryana in connection with a money laundering case totaling Rs 1,626 crore, linked to Pranav Gupta and Vineet Gupta’s company, Parabolic Drugs Pharma Ltd.
As per IANS, the Guptas were also co-founders of Ashoka University and had resigned from their positions last year.
ED sources confirmed that the agency’s teams are conducting searches in Delhi, Ambala, Panchkula, Chandigarh, and Mumbai, focusing on locations associated with Parabolic Drugs and its officials. However, senior officials have remained tight-lipped regarding further details.
The ED case stems from a CBI FIR against Chandigarh-based Parabolic Drugs, accused of defrauding a consortium led by the Central Bank of India (CBI) of Rs 1,626.74 crore.
Among those named in the CBI case are Pranav and Vineet Gupta, who held leadership positions at Ashoka University. Pranav Gupta serves as the Managing Director of Parabolic Drugs, while Vineet is one of the company’s directors. Other individuals included in the CBI case are directors Deepali Gupta, Rama Gupta, Jagjit Singh Chahal, Sanjeev Kumar, Vandana Singla, Ishrat Gill, and the company’s guarantors T.N. Goyal and Nirmal Bansal, along with J.D. Gupta.
In response to the CBI case and earlier searches, Ashoka University released a statement in January last year, asserting that the personal business dealings of individual founders and donors have no connection to the university. It was stated that Vineet and Pranav Gupta voluntarily stepped down from all boards and committees at the university during the CBI investigation.
The CBI had conducted searches at 12 locations in Chandigarh, Panchkula, Ludhiana, Faridabad, and Delhi on December 31, 2021, recovering incriminating documents, articles, and Rs 1.58 crore in cash. The firm, engaged in drug manufacturing, allegedly defrauded the consortium of banks through criminal conspiracy and forgery, misappropriating loans intended for other purposes.