ED Gets Custody of Vatika CMD, Promoter

GURUGRAM: The Enforcement Directorate has arrested Vatika Limited chairman-cum-managing director Anil Bhalla and promoter Gautam Bhalla in a Prevention of Money Laundering Act case, and a special PMLA court in Gurugram remanded them to ED custody after they were produced following the 28 September arrests, agency and court records summarised in public briefings show.

ED alleges the promoters were linked to non-delivery of residential plots sold years earlier in Gurugram projects including India Next and Next-2, and to diversion of buyer funds treated as proceeds of crime of about Rs 154 crore against a wider alleged plot-fraud canvas of roughly Rs 260 crore. Those figures are ED's case theory. Guilt is not proven until a court convicts.

On 29 September, Special PMLA Court Judge Narender Sura heard the production and granted ED a four-day custodial remand for questioning on fund trails, with a further produce window around 2 and 3 October. Remand is a custody tool for investigation, not a finding that the alleged laundering is proved.

What ED says, what the court has done

The agency's narrative, as set out in its PMLA papers, is that plot buyers paid for inventory that was not handed over as promised, and that money was layered through group entities. ED has previously used provisional attachment orders in related Vatika matters; those attachments and the fresh arrests sit on separate procedural tracks even when the project names overlap.

Anil Bhalla and Gautam Bhalla remain accused persons on allegations under PMLA. Defence counsel can challenge remand, seek bail after custody ends, and contest the predicate-offence link that money-laundering cases require. Nothing in the remand order converts ED's Rs 154 crore proceeds estimate into a final recovery for buyers.

Homebuyers who hold allotment letters for India Next, Next-2 or related Vatika inventory should track their civil and RERA remedies separately from the criminal PMLA file. HRERA and the district administration publish recovery and complaint routes at https://haryanarera.gov.in/ and https://gurugram.gov.in/. ED's public window is https://www.enforcementdirectorate.gov.in/.

For Gurugram's real-estate enforcement desk, the practical news is that two named Vatika promoters are in ED custody on a dated remand, with a Gurugram special court supervising produce dates. That is a sharper step than attachment-only headlines, but it is still pre-trial process.

Readers should treat project names, crore figures and "fraud" labels in this report as allegations drawn from ED's case theory and court remand papers, not as settled facts. Flat and plot buyers waiting on delivery still need their own decree or settlement; a PMLA custody order does not automatically unlock keys.

Next public markers are the end of the current ED custody period, any extension request, and whether a prosecution complaint or supplementary complaint follows with a fuller money trail. Until then, Anil Bhalla and Gautam Bhalla are under investigation, not convicts.

Co-accused, if any are later named, and company-level attachments will surface in ED's further complaints. Readers should not treat every Vatika project in Gurugram as part of this PMLA custody story; only the projects and proceeds ED has tied to this investigation belong in that frame.

Listed group companies and lenders will watch the custody window for disclosure triggers. That market reaction is separate from the criminal remand. This report sticks to the arrests, the Gurugram special court order, and the allegation amounts ED has put on paper.