Ahmedabad: Enforcement Directorate (ED) today said it has provisionally attached assets worth Rs 134.38 crores of Aatash Norcontrol Ltd under PMLA, 2002 in the Gujarat Maritime Board scam.

In 2019 CID (crime) Gujarat had arrested the chairman and managing director of the scam-hit Aatash Norcontrol Pvt Ltd, Jinofur Bhujwala, and four other persons including a senior government official, in connection with a fraud that has caused a loss of Rs 134 crore to the exchequer after a complaint by the state maritime regulator, Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB).The company was a joint venture between the Bhujwala-controlled Aatash Group, which has a 51% equity stake, and Norway’s Kongsberg Maritime. GMB had terminated Aatash’s project after it unearthed massive financial irregularities.

Aatash Norcontrol had allegedly set up shell companies to round-trip money, producing fake project reports and fake invoices and inflating investment figures to pocket a larger share of revenue from the project. In 2018, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) pointed out that Aatash Norcontrol had earned an exorbitant sum from the project, much higher than what it was contractually entitled to under the concession agreement with GMB. The CAG had also issued an ‘audit-para’ in this regard with its initial findings showing the additional income of at least Rs 134 crore was pocketed by Aatash Norcontrol. The company had failed to deposit the excess income it earned despite repeated notices from GMB.

An FIR had been lodged at CID (crime), Gandhinagar zone, in which eight persons, including retired GMB chief nautical officer S C Mathur, and Chetan Dalwadi of Aatash Norcontrol. Jinofer Bhujwala, his son Zubin Bhujwala, residents of the Sola area of Ahmedabad, along with a Bapunagar-based couple, Sudarshan and Rekha Sharma, and superintending engineer (mechanical) Harshad Rajpal, were arrested in the case. Jinofer’s daughter Nazneen was not been arrested as she had a two-month-old child(in 2019).

The accused were charged under IPC Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent), 420 (cheating), 465 (punishment for forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) along with sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
GMB had awarded a long-term Vessels Traffic and Ports Management System (VTPMS) contract for the Gulf of Khambhat on Build-Operate-Own-Transfer (BOOT) basis to Aatash Norcontrol. The project became operational in August 2010.

According to the concession agreement with GMB, against an investment of Rs 100 crore, Aatash Norcontrol would be entitled to get 15% return on equity. In case the project cost was less than Rs 100 crore, then the Vehicle Traffic System (VTS) fees would be reduced. However, if the project cost was higher than Rs 100 crore, Aatash Norcontrol would have to pay only 20% of the VTS fees collected to GMB, while it could keep 80%. In its attempt to garner more income, the company produced eight fake invoices of Rs 16.31 crore and diverted funds to shell companies.