The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is accusing Dewan Housing Finance Limited (also known as DHFL) and its Directors Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan, along with many other individuals, of defrauding 17 banks out of a total of Rs 34,615 crore on Wednesday of this week. This is the most significant instance of bank fraud that the CBI has ever documented.
The only company that comes close is ABG Shipyard, which was charged with cheating banks to the tune of Rs 23,000 crore.
In connection with an alleged scam involving Yes Bank NSE 2.41 percent, the DHFL promoters, including the Wadhawan brothers, are already the subject of an inquiry by both the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
Both India Today and The Print published articles in March and April of this year stating that despite the fact that it has been two years since Dheeraj Wadhawan was arrested in connection with the Yes Bank money laundering case, he has spent more time in a posh hospital than in a jail cell. The article stated that this is due to the fact that Wadhawan has spent more time in the hospital than in jail.
Since his arrest on 26 April 2020, for allegedly securing investments of Rs 3,700 crore from Yes Bank for DHFL in exchange for “substantial disproportionate benefit” to bank CEO Rana Kapoor and his family, Wadhawan has been frequently denied bail but spent just around nine months in jail.
He has been admitted to several different hospitals over the past 15 months or so, alleging a variety of illnesses as the reason for his frequent visits. Among these hospitalizations was one that lasted for ten months at the luxurious Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital in Mumbai.
Wadhawan made a number of petitions to the courts, and when those efforts were unsuccessful, he turned to the Maharashtra Human Rights Commission in an effort to get himself admitted to a hospital.
Holiday with covids
Prior to the arrest in 2020, the Wadhawans made news when they managed to dodge the Covid lockdown in Maharashtra with the aid of a top IPS official.
Even though the regions of Pune and Satara were under lockdown due to the presence of Corona, the Wadhawan family and other people drove their automobiles from Khandala to their property in Mahabaleshwar. They provided the COVID-19 as an excuse for their absence from the summons that required them to attend for interrogation in connection with the investigation into money laundering. After they failed to show up, they gave the excuse that “health is a priority.”
According to NDTV NSE -0.69 percent, it was forgotten when the brothers, their families, chefs, and assists travelled 180 kilometres from Khandala to Mahabaleshwar for a holiday, piled into two Range Rovers and three Fortuners. The journey took around three hours.
The special passports that were issued to the brothers, who were under investigation for several counts of fraud, caused a lot of people to get outraged.
Their contentious trip was made possible thanks to Amitabh Gupta, the Principal Secretary for Home in the Maharashtra government, who was made to take mandatory leave after facilitating the trip.
Exists throughout several generations
In November of 2019, ET researched the Wadhawan family and produced a comprehensive description of them, including a family tree.
Two different families are responsible for running the real estate and mortgage companies known as DHFL and HDIL. Rakesh Wadhawan, who works at HDIL, is the younger brother of Rajesh Wadhawan, who passed away. Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan, Rajesh’s children, currently head DHFL. According to the Economic Offences Wing of the Mumbai Police, Rakesh Wadhawan and his son Sarang Wadhawan, also known as Sunny Dewan, promoters of the real estate firm Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd NSE -4.96 percent (HDIL), are accused of defrauding the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMC) to the tune of more than Rs 4,500 crore in collusion with bank officials.
According to the ET biography of the DHFL brothers, Kapil is the professional and reserved face of DHFL. He can be seen handling queries on business television and taking analyst calls. Younger brother Dheeraj Dewan, popularly known as Baba Dewan, is well-known in Mumbai for his close relations with Bollywood celebs and among auto enthusiasts for the magnificent automobiles he is seen in while also being surrounded by body guards. In addition, Mumbai residents know him as Baba Dewan.
After allegations were made in January 2019 by a Cobrapost sting operation that the corporation had syphoned off money to associated organisations, DHFL’s problems began, and credit rating agencies began lowering the company’s paper in June 2019. In July, DHFL began to deviate from the terms of its repayments. Depositors have taken legal action against DHFL in a number of cases. The first one was submitted to the Chandigarh High Court by IAS officer Ashok Khemka on behalf of his wife. The second one was submitted to the Bombay High Court by Edelweiss NSE 1.72 percent AMC, and it asked DHFL to temporarily cease repayments of its deposits.
DHFL operated as a shadow bank that accepted deposits. This indicates that quite apart from the tens of thousands of stockholders whose investments have been wiped out, the problems of the company affect tens of thousands of customers who have fixed deposits with them, holders of bonds and debentures, and banks that have lent very large sums of money to the company. To provide just one example, the State Bank of India NSE 0.63 percent has an exposure to DHFL of 11,000 crore rupees.