Day after Income Tax Department conducted raids on premises of Hilal Rather son of former finance minister Abdul Rahim Rather in alleged loan misappropriation and tax evasion cases, the junior Rather, while saying that it is the prerogative of the agencies to investigate any matter and take action against any errant person, said he will provide full cooperation in the investigations.
However, in a statement, the promoters of Paradise Avenue,the property that was mentioned in the news reports, said it does not belong toHilal Rather solely and he is only one of partners of the partnership firmamong five people. The statement said they want to set the record straight andclarify “the inaccuracies, misinformation and false insinuations in the variousmedia reports”.
“Time and again the focus of all media reports concerningParadise Avenue is only on him (Hilal) and invariably name of Abdul RahimRather is dragged into it without any reason inspite of the fact that he hasnothing to do either with M/s Paradise Avenue or Simula Group, the company ofHilal Ahmad under the banner of which he has been successfully doing businessfor last 17 years in Jammu,” read the statement.
“It is being widely reported that the loan has beenfraudulently obtained from the bank even without having title of the land inpossession which is completely baseless as no bank releases a single penny toany borrower without securing adequate security in place. In this land wasregistered in the month of July 2012 and funds were released only in September2012 after creating all securities and pledges. Further it has been assumedthat the value of land has been artificially inflated in the sale deeds, whichis again not true as the land has been registered at the existing circle ratesof the time.”
The statement says that the news about illegal waiter of Rs50 crore given to the firm through One Time Settlement (OTS) is not true as thebank itself through its letter dated 20.10.2018 , refused to accept any OTSciting that there was no such provision with the bank.
“The whole issue of the loan amount of Rs 177.60 Crore hasto be understood in the right perspective. The principal component of the loanprimarily for construction of the project was only around Rs128 crore, restbeing interest component. The principal component has been utilized towardsconstruction of 342 flats on the project site unlike media reports that theloan was sanctioned for only 52 flats of two towers, which are actually theones which have been delivered to customers. Structural work in the remainingtwo towers which is the bulk of the project have almost been completed,” readthe statement.
It also stated thatas far as directorship in a foreign agency is concerned and a bank account, thepromoters would like to put on record that Hilal Rather has a minority interestin a company in Dubai which is a connection distribution agent of DU Telecom,which does not require any major capital investment.
“As far as the rest of the issues regarding the transactionsof the firm etc. are concerned, no official intimation has been provided to thepromoters by the agencies of the information and evidence gathered by them,” itsaid.