Indore: The enforcement directorate (ED) has facilitated restitution of property worth Rs 180.87 crore to a group of banks defrauded by M/s Zoom Developers Pvt Ltd (ZDPL).The Bhopal zonal office of the ED confirmed that the special court (PMLA) in Indore passed the restitution order. The decision came as a major relief to the lenders involved in one of the country’s most complex money laundering investigation.
Indore Headlines Today — The Biggest Updates You Need to Know.
The court directed the return of assets based on applications filed by the affected financial institutions. As per an official press release, property with a fair market value of Rs 106.5 crore (consisting of three attached properties) will be restored to 22 bank consortium led by Punjab National Bank. Also, assets valued at Rs 74.37 crore (comprising 21 attached properties) were ordered for restitution in favour of IDBI Bank, which pursued its claim independently of the consortium.The case dates back to an FIR registered by CBI in 2013 against ZDPL and its directors Vijay Madanlal Chaudhary and Bihari Lal Kejriwal. The company, which specialised in consultancy and engineering services, was accused of defrauding the banks of approximately Rs 2,650 crore. While this restitution covers Rs 180.87 crore, it represents only a fraction of the total Rs 2,650 crore loss incurred by the banks.The investigation revealed that ZDPL fraudulently obtained loans and bank guarantees by presenting ‘paper contracts’ for intangible engineering services allegedly rendered to foreign companies. Instead of being used for business operations, these funds were diverted through foreign middlemen and aggregators — which were secretly controlled by director Vijay Madanlal Chaudhary — into various group companies, private trusts in India and overseas entities.The ED provisionally attached these property during its investigation, a move that was later confirmed by the adjudicating authority. The agency filed three separate prosecution complaints between 2015 and 2022.The move for restitution gained momentum on Jan 23, 2025, when PNB filed an application under Section 8(8) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), which allows for the return of attached property to claimants, who acted in good faith and suffered a quantifiable loss.The ED stated that further investigations into the case are ongoing.
