By Kavita Mistry 
New Delhi: Frustrated over the lack of cooperation in a nearly four-year-old money laundering case, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had activated all its informers for any clue about the whereabouts of former Congress MLA from Haryana, Dharam Singh Chhoker.
The efforts finally paid off on Sunday.
A joint director-level officer received a tip-off that Chhoker—who was accused in a money laundering case along with his two sons—was partying with his friends at the Shangri-La Hotel in the heart of Delhi, said sources in the agency.
Upon confirming the authenticity of the input, an ED team reached the five-star hotel within half an hour.
However, ED sources said Chhoker remained uncooperative and defiant despite information that Non-Bailable Warrants (NBWs) were opened against him.
Instead, ED officials said, he attempted to flee the hotel and ran towards the exit. However, the leader of the ED’s raiding team, the joint director was already waiting for him.
A group of ED officers pinned him to the ground before taking him away to the agency’s regional office in Gurugram. A CCTV camera captured a video of his arrest in the hotel’s exit area. The footage went viral on social media Tuesday.
Chhoker was later produced before the Gurugram court, which sent him to the ED’s custody for five days.
As the dramatic arrest puts the spotlight on Chhoker and the ED follows his trail, ThePrint explains the money laundering case against him.
Advocate Prashant Yadav, who represents Chhoker, has dismissed all allegations of misappropriation of funds.
Family firm at core of legal trouble
A former policeman, Chhoker started his political career in 2009 when he won the assembly elections from the Samalkha constituency. Although he could not win the next elections on a Congress ticket, he was widely believed to be close to former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
He returned as MLA in 2019 from the same constituency but lost again in the assembly elections in October last year.
The Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case against him stems from an FIR lodged by Gurugram Police under sections 120-B, 420, 467 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code 1860—pertaining to criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery and the use of forged documents—against Sai Aaina Farms Pvt Ltd (SAFL), Sikander Singh and 13 other office-bearers of the firm.
It was alleged that the firm had submitted multiple fake bank guarantees to the Department of Town and Country Planning (DTCP) to secure licences for housing projects at Gurugram’s Sector 68.
SAFL is one of the companies of the Mahira group, controlled by Chhoker and his two sons, Sikander Singh and Vikas Chhoker.
Based on the FIR, the ED opened an Enforcement Complaint Information Report (ECIR) to probe the matter.
An investigation by the agency so far has revealed that SAFL secured a license in 2017 to construct around 1,500 flats by 2021-2022, for which the firm collected funds amounting to Rs 363 crore from 1,500 home buyers.
By April last year, the housing project was allegedly only 20 percent complete.
The ED has alleged that Chhoker and his two sons diverted these funds collected for house projects into another company controlled by them, before using them for personal consumption, such as buying houses and luxury items.
The ED alleges that Sikander Singh was also the director of a firm named DS Home Construction Pvt Ltd, which was handed a contract by SAFL worth around Rs 239 crore for the construction of a housing project in Gurugram’s Sector 68.
In the 2021-22 financial year, SAFL further transferred Rs 48.63 crore to DS Home Construction in the guise of loans and advances, which the ED has alleged was used for consumption by Chhoker’s son, Sikander Singh.
The ED has further alleged that funds collected by SAFL from homebuyers were used by Chhoker and his son to purchase luxury properties in Gurugram’s upscale DLF Phase-I and South Extension in Delhi, and to splurge on Chhoker’s daughter’s wedding.
Choker’s lawyer, advocate Prashant Yadav, said the entire amount received by DS Home Construction, in which he was director for a short time, was used for construction purposes.
“The construction of houses for which money was transferred has been completed,” Yadav told ThePrint.
He also said that Chhoker’s hand has been fractured because of a previous injury and the local court allowed his plea for medical intervention for the same.
While the agency arrested Chhoker’s son, Sikander Singh, in April last year, Dharam Singh Chhoker and his other son, Vikas Chhoker, remained out of its grasp.
Conceding that discreet enquiries in his former assembly constituency and residential addresses did not yield any result, and neither Dharam Singh nor his son were coming forward to cooperate, the ED moved an application in November last year to declare both as proclaimed offenders.
The Special PMLA court in Gurugram declared them proclaimed offenders but not without noting that the agency could have made better efforts to arrest them earlier by taking steps such as putting their mobile phones and their near and dear ones under surveillance to assess their location and movements.
Vikas is still absconding while Dharam Singh Chhoker has been sent to ED custody till May 9. Sikander secured bail from the Punjab and Haryana High Court on 31 January this year on the grounds of a long-pending trial process.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)