Hiranandanis asked to appear before ED on Monday in FEMA case

Prominent Mumbai-based real estate developer Hiranandani Group’s promoter Niranjan Hiranandani and his son Darshan Hiranandani have been asked to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) office in Mumbai on Monday, days after their premises were searched by the sleuths in a foreign exchange violation case.

ED sources said Niranjan and his son Darshan may either physically appear before the investigators in Mumbai office or send their authorised representative to submit their primary response in the FEMA case. Hiranandanis stay in Dubai and were in the news recently in the cash-for-query scandal involving TMC MP Mohua Moitra, expelled from Lok Sabha in December, 2023.

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ED sources ruled out that the searches against Hiranandanis have anything to do with the Mohua Moitra case which is going on separately. The ED is probing allegations that Moitra had asked questions in the Lok Sabha to target the Adani Group and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the behest of Darshan Hiranandani in lieu of gifts.

In the present case, ED officials stated that nearly four to five premises of the Hiranandani Group in and around Mumbai were searched by the ED on February 22 under the provisions of the FEMA.

Besides some suspected foreign transactions, the key to the probe is, said the agency, to look into charges that beneficiaries of a British Virgin Islands (BVI)-based trust was linked to the Hiranandani Group promoters.

After the searches, the company released a statement, stating it was extending full cooperation to the ED in the FEMA case and since the matter is 15-year-old “it took time to dig out old records”.