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NEW DELHI: A formal complaint has been submitted to the Enforcement Directorate seeking a money laundering probe into three firms linked to the Ind-Barath Group over an alleged bank loan fraud amounting to Rs 2,011.72 crore. Retired IPS officer P.V. Sunil Kumar has petitioned the Director of the agency to register an Enforcement Case Information Report based on three existing Central Bureau of Investigation cases and to initiate proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act to identify assets acquired through diverted borrowings.
Allegations of fund diversion across group entities
The complaint points to suspected financial irregularities and diversion of credit lines sanctioned by lenders to companies associated with K. Raghu Rama Krishna Raju. According to the records of the three CBI cases, Ind-Barath Power (Madras) Limited accounted for an alleged loss of Rs 947.71 crore, Ind-Barath Thermal Power Limited caused a loss of Rs 826.17 crore, and Ind-Barath Power Gencom Limited was linked to a default of Rs 237.84 crore, taking the cumulative exposure to Rs 2,011.72 crore. The complainant argued that assessing the defaults alone would remain inadequate without a forensic tracking of the specific accounts and commercial entities through which loan proceeds were layered and moved.
A wide range of transactions has been brought under scrutiny in the petition, including fixed deposits, advance payments remitted to contractors, inter-corporate deposits, related-party remittances, and funds disbursed by the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation. The plea urges the financial probe agency to reconstruct the end-to-end movement of capital to establish whether bank funds were systematically channeled away from their sanctioned operational purposes into extraneous activities.
Probe sought into auditor roles and offshore assets
The retired police officer has additionally called for an examination into the conduct of participating bank officials, statutory auditors, and other associated parties. The submission emphasizes that identifying the money trail requires a thorough review of company bank statements, ledger entries, settlement records, and transaction chains. It further asks the directorate to locate properties suspected of being acquired using diverted capital and to initiate attachment proceedings against them.
Special focus has been placed on capital channeled through Mauritius. The complainant has urged investigators to trace the ultimate source of these cross-border inflows, identify the beneficial owners, and uncover the overarching corporate architecture behind the foreign investments. The petition notes that determining the genuine origin of these funds is critical to verifying whether domestic credit was routed overseas and reintroduced through foreign investment channels.
Scrutiny urged over stayed foreign exchange penalty
The representation also highlights a separate regulatory penalty of Rs 40 crore levied under the Foreign Exchange Management Act against K. Raghu Rama Krishna Raju in November 2023. P.V. Sunil Kumar requested the federal agency to take necessary legal measures before the Telangana High Court to vacate an existing stay on the enforcement of the penalty, arguing that legal proceedings must move forward to safeguard the inquiry into alleged foreign exchange contraventions.
The complaint concludes with a call for swift investigative steps, including the immediate preservation of financial papers, electronic records, and transactional evidence. While the petition outlines demands for parallel inquiries into the loan fraud and regulatory violations, the agency has not issued an official statement confirming the registration of a money laundering case. Any future action by the enforcement body would require corroborating the CBI charges, tracing offshore holdings, and examining the role of company executives.
