Consultant turns out a defaulter

    19-Jun-2019
By Our Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, Jun 18:  The IL&FS Township and Urban Assets Limited and Pricewaterhouse Coopers Pvt. Ltd which signed an MoU  for implementation of smart city project in Imphal as a project management consultant has turned out be a fraud-hit company and a defaulter. 
It may be mentioned that the State Government signed an MoU with Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) Township and Urban Assets Limited and Pricewaterhouse Coopers Pvt Ltd as a project management consultant for implementation of Smart City Project in Imphal at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat on November 6, 2018.  The IL&FS Group, sitting on a debt pile of over Rs 99,358 crore as of last September, had sparked off a liquidity crisis in the country last year, when the parent firm and multiple subsidiaries defaulted on several debt repayments.
The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), which has been probing the group since last October, filed its first charge sheet earlier this month. The 840-page charge sheet focuses on just one subsidiary, IL&FS Financial Services Ltd (IFIN), and more are under the scanner.
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) allowed banks to declare IL&FS Group's accounts as NPAs last month.
Even as the top management of the crippled IL&FS group continues to face the heat from multiple probe agencies and regulators like the Enforcement Directorate, Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) and, most recently, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), former Directors have not escaped unscathed.
The buzz is that the Ministry of Corporate Affairs will soon move the NCLAT to freeze bank accounts and properties of some of the past Directors of the group.
SEBI issued an order on January 9 this year whereby all the firms in the PW (Price Waterhouse) network were banned from auditing listed companies for two years. The SEBI found the audit firm guilty in the nine-year-old Rs 7,136 crore Satyam Computer Services Ltd scam.
In its 108-page order, the market regulator said the firm was complicit with the main perpetrators of the accounting fraud and did not comply with auditing standards.