Kolkata Court awards Rose Valley official Arun Mukherjee 7 years jail term under PMLA

Mukherjee was a debenture trustee of the Rose Valley Real Estates Construction Ltd and was responsible for the acts and affairs of the company and had pleaded guilty for the offence of money laundering before the Court.

ED, in a statement issued on Saturday said, "The Court has sentenced Arun Mukherjee to suffer rigorous imprisonment of seven years and to pay a fine of Rs 2.5 lakh in default rigorous imprisonment for another six months.”

The central financial probe agency had initiated investigation under the provisions of PMLA, 2002 against Rose Valley Real Estates Construction Ltd, its Chairman Gautam Kundu along with other persons related to the company.

It was alleged before the Securities Exchange Board of India that Rose Valley Real Estate Construction Limited and its Associate Companies repeatedly floated Secured Non – Convertible Debentures in the year 2001-2002, 2004-2005, 2005-2006 and in 2007-2008 and issued to more than 49 persons in each financial year and illegally raised the total sum of Rs 12.82 Crores.

“During the course of investigation, it was revealed that the accused Company under the direction and control of accused persons had accumulated investments from 2585 persons, a total of around Rs 12 crores and acquired control over various securities as defined under section 11(C) of SEBI Act, 1992 read with section 24 and 27 of the said Act. The money so acquired were further laundered by investing the same in various movable properties”, the probe agency said.

Provisional Attachment order under PMLA was issued in respect of fourteen fixed deposits having total value of Rs 12 crores and the two accused persons namely Gautam Kundu and Amit Banerjee were arrested in 2015 and a Prosecution Complaints, equivalent to the charge sheet were filed in 2015.

Trial of other accused persons has been under progress, the ED officials said.