Kolkata (West Bengal): His full name is Kanwar Deep Singh. However, in the business and political circle he is more popular as KD Singh. Recently, Enforcement Directorate (ED), the investigation arm of the Union finance ministry, has taken Singh to custody on charges of money laundering It is alleged that Singh's organization Alchemist Infra Reality Limited has accumulated deposit worth Rs 1,900 crore in an unauthorized manner from the market and later transferred the money illegally outside the country.
In 2016, Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) filed a suit against Alchemist Group. On the basis of that ED started its probe against the group. In January 2019, ED attached Alchemist's property worth Rs 239.29 crore. The attached property included cash deposited into two bank accounts, and some immovable assets in Chandigarh, Panchkula, Derbashi, SAS Nagar (Punjab) and Simla.
ED then alleged that the corporate entity accumulated deposits from the marketing luring the investors with schemes of attractive returns. However, instead of investing them promised sector, the accumulated deposits were illegally parked outside.
However, this same KD Singh was quite influential both in the business and political circles at one point of time. In 1988 he floated Turbo Industries, which was renamed as Alchemist in the year 2004. He, at the same time, was the principal shareholder of Anant Media Private Limited, which used to publish the investigative weekly Tehelka. In 2013, Tehelka published a report that the Punjabis residing in North Haryana wants Singh as the chief minister.
His academic career was also quite impressive. He holds a doctorate in business administration Cambridge (UK)'s Angelia Ruskin University.
His political career was quite spicy too. In 2010 he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha by Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM). Just a few months after that joined Trinamool Congress. However, since he was only Rajya Sabha member of JMM then the defection law was not applicable to him and he continued as the Rajya Sabha member.
In 2014 he got elected again to the Rajya Sabha for Trinamool Congress. Soo his influence within the party increased he was appointed as the party's chief for entire north India. His term in the Rajya Sabha ended in April last year.
Opposition parties claimed that that at point of time Singh became the principal fund supplier for Trinamool Congress and taking that advantage he expanded his deposit accumulation and fund transfer business. The opposition parties also claim that at that point of time West Bengal became one of the principal hubs of his business.
Somewhat around that time, allegations were floated that Singh ensured his entry to Rajya Sabha against money. A sting operation by a website it was revealed that six legislators of Jharkhand were offered a high amount of cash to vote for Singh. In the sting operation, JMM legislator, Teklal Mahato claimed that Singh pumped out huge amounts of cash to ensure his entry in the Rajya Sabha. Late Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) started probing the in the matter and also filed an FIR against Singh.
Again in 2009, Income Tax sleuths raided 11 offices of Alchemist Group through the country and accessed around Rs 22 crore of unaccounted cash. From 2013, payment defaults complaints started coming against Alchemist Group. The deposit accumulation business of the group came under the scanner of the probe agencies then. Soon after that Security Appeal Tribunal ordered Alchemist Infra Realty Limited to abide by the SEBI order within 18 months. SEBI had ordered the entity to return around Rs 1,000 crore that it collected from the depositors. SEBI estimated that the group collected about Rs 1,000 crore from about 1.5 million depositors.
Since then the opposition parties started attacking Trinamool Congress over Singh. Trinamool leadership too started distancing themselves from Singh. Just before the 2016 West Bengal assembly elections, the famous Narada sting operations came to the limelight where several Trinamool Congress leaders and ministers were seen accepting cash against promises of favours. There were rumours then that KD Singh sponsored that sting operation by providing around Rs 40 lakhs to Mathew Samuel.
