The Narendra Modi-government is looking to tighten the noose around companies and promoters suspected of financial irregularities. ET Now learns that the Ministry of Home Affairs has issued a lookout notice against the promoters of Dewan Housing Financial.The moves comes after the Ministry of Corporate Affairs requested for a lookout circular in at least 20 such cases to prevent suspected promoters from leaving the country like Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi.This is the latest set back to DHFL , which was alleged of routing money through various shell companies by Cobra post earlier this year.Last week DHFL also said that it will not accept any fresh deposits and not allow premature withdrawal of deposits by customers, after a slew of rating downgrades hit the company.The shares of DHFL fell as much as 7% in intraday trading on Tuesday before paring some losses.ET Now learns that the Corporate Affairs Ministry was looking into shell companies associated with DHFL and had also found loopholes in some of the registered address of the group companies.In a reply to exchanges, the NBFC clarified: The company and/or its promoter—directors have not received any communication from the authorities regarding issuance of any lookout notice. The company is currently focused in getting a strategic partner, fulfilling all its obligations on time and in building strategy for the company’s back-to-business growth.”As reiterated in the past, the company added that it denies all allegations of existence of any alleged shell companies.“We have fully cooperated with all authorities and we have not received any communication from any authorities in support of any of these allegations. The rumour mongering by vested interests are hurting the market sentiment,” DHFL said in a statement.This is the second such action taken by the government in the last one week to prevent promoters alleged of malpractices or fraud from travelling outside the country. Naresh Goyal and wife Anita Goyal suspected of some accounting irregularities were deplaned over the weekend.

Source: Economic Times May 28, 2019 07:14 UTC