Acting in a major bank fraud case related to Richa Industries Limited, the Gurugram zonal team of ED arrested the company’s former promoter and suspended managing director Sandeep Gupta on January 20, 2026 under money laundering charges. After his arrest, Sandeep Gupta was produced in the special court of Gurugram. Where the court has sent him to ED custody for 8 days. ED had started this investigation on the basis of CBI’s FIR. According to the investigation, between 2015 and 2018, the accused defrauded public sector banks of about Rs 236 crore.
deliberately showed fake supply of goods
ED investigation has revealed that Richa Industries deliberately showed fake sales without supplying the goods. This includes cotton fabric sale worth Rs 7.42 crore and fake sale of solar worth Rs 8.50 crore. Which was shown in the names of many shell companies. These companies were being run through entry operators. During investigation, the invoices and account books related to these transactions were found to be fake and full of manipulation.
Not only this, the company also showed fake purchase of ZLD plant and machinery worth Rs 9.23 crore. This purchase was shown to be from a company which was neither operational nor did its business profile, GST details or HSN code match that of such machinery supply. ED also found that between FY 2015-16 to 2017-18, an amount of about Rs 16.40 crore was diverted in the name of loan repayment in group companies.
In FY 2018-19, controlling stake in Richa Krishna Constructions Private Limited was purchased with RIL money. Due to which an important project of Rohtak went out of the company. Meanwhile, shares of Richa Infrastructure Limited were transferred at a very low price, due to which RIL suffered a huge loss.
The accused misappropriated many properties of the company
The investigation has also revealed that just before the commencement of the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP), Sandeep Gupta played a big role in shifting the valuable assets of the company. For this, many shell companies were formed through which assets were diverted from time to time. CIRP of Richa Industries started in December 2018. But no resolution plan could be passed. After this, NCLT put the company into liquidation on 11 June 2025.
An e-auction was held on 16 October 2025 to sell the company as a going concern. In which bidding took place at the reserve price of Rs 96 crore. In this process, public sector banks like IOB and Union Bank got only Rs 40.29 crore instead of claims of Rs 696 crore, i.e. had to face a haircut of about 94 percent.
Richa Industries had given corporate guarantee of so many crores to 6 companies.
The ED investigation has also revealed that just before the commencement of CIRP in October 2018, Richa Industries gave corporate guarantees of more than Rs 232 crore to six companies. All these guarantees were signed by Sandeep Gupta. These companies had about 48.25% voting rights in the Committee of Creditors (CoC), due to which big lenders like IOB and Union Bank could not take any decision alone.
According to investigation, Sandeep Gupta owned Sariga Construction Pvt. A shell company named Limited was formed, in which former RIL employee Neha Singh was made a benami director. CIRP was influenced by obtaining voting rights in CoC through this company. ED alleges that even during CIRP, Sandeep Gupta and his family illegally maintained control over the company, made agreements and also took salaries. Apart from this, before the start of CIRP, a big project in Mussoorie was sub-contracted to a company associated with the promoter, due to which an amount of about Rs 40 crore was lost during CIRP. ED says that the investigation of the case is still going on.
