ED attaches Rs 25-crore worth properties of Farouk Irani

CHENNAI: The Chennai wing of Enforcement Directorate has provisionally attached another Rs 25-crore worth of properties of Farouk M Irani, the founder and former managing director of First Leasing.

Irani, referred to as the Father of Indian Leasing, founded First Leasing of India along with former BCCI Chief AC Muthiah.

The company's top executives are now being probed by the Enforcement Directorate for cheating banks in Rs 1,600-crore scam. The attachment is the third move from ED after arresting Irani mid-June, and taking two other former executives into judicial custody recently.

"We have just given out the Provisional Order for attachment of properties worth Rs 25 crore of Farouk Irani," said KSVV Prasad, Joint Director with Enforcement Directorate-Chennai, told ET. The ED had earlier attached fixed deposits worth Rs 51 crore of Irani. The deposits were in the name of family members and the trust Irani Family Maintenance Trust.

ED officials had last week arrest S Dilli Raj and L Sivaramakrishnan, both former top finance executives at First Leasing. An ED release had said both had admitted to indulging in fudging accounts in the scam estimated to have looted banks to the tune of Rs 522 crores. Executives of First Leasing, which earns income by leasing out a wide range of assets from ATM machines to railway wagons, had created fictitious business accounts to inflate transactions worth about Rs 1,600-crore.

Irani, now lodged in Puzhal prison, had earlier applied for bail, but the petition has been dismissed.