Congress leader Kuldeep Bishnoi's benami assets worth Rs 150-crore attached by I-T department

New Delhi: The Benami Prohibition Unit (BPU) Delhi of the Income Tax Department on Tuesday attached benami assets of Congress leader Kuldeep Bishnoi worth Rs 150-crore.

The said asset is owned in the name Gurugram based Bright Star Hotel Private Limited in which 34 percent shares are held in the name of a front company registered in British Virgin Island (BVI) and operated inter alia from UAE.

Investigations revealed that the said entity and its assets are the benami assets of Kuldeep Bishnoi and Chander Mohan, sons of former Chief Minister of Haryana Late Bhajan Lal.

The provisional order of attachment was issued under section 24(3) of the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988.

The attachment is one of the outcomes of the on-going investigation including a search & seizure operation conducted in the group by the Department, in July 2019 during which lot of incriminating evidence regarding the ownership of the Bristol Hotel through a Benami arrangement were recovered.

Benami shareholders of the said BVI entity are close confidantes of Bishnoi family. Control over affairs of the entity rests with the Bishnois; consideration paid for acquisition of shares in Bright Star Hotel Private Limited was arranged by the Bishnois and they were managing actual affairs of the entity through their associates based in India and abroad, the I-T department said.