Jains of Raja fame invested heavily in TN real estate

Preliminary investigation has revealed that the JG group of companies, run by the Jain brothers Daulat, Mahesh and Rajesh, have invested heavily in real estate. It is suspected that the brothers helped former Telecom Minister A. Raja’s “ill-gotten wealth” first to move outside India with the help of their half-a-dozen export and import companies based in Delhi, Chennai, Hong Kong, Dubai and Nigeria. Later, the money was brought back and invested in real estates and other lucrative businesses.

The group’s investment in real estate is mostly in Tamil Nadu. It owns a hotel, Deccan Plaza, in Chennai and 50 acres of land in Sriperumbudur. In Delhi, they have no real investments in properties, except for a commercial building in Gurgaon.

Their offices function to facilitate various export and import businesses and work mostly with China, Hong Kong and Malaysia. The three brothers jointly manage the business. Mahesh manages the Delhi office, Daulat the Chennai office and Rajesh the Dubai office.

The group, once traditionally involved in commodities trading from Chawri Bazaar in Old Delhi, now has a wide variety of interests like hotel, real estate, lighting and electricity companies and solar power and telecom VAS (value added service) company. The group claims an annual turnover of Rs 500 cr.

All these expansions coincided with Raja’s political growth from the time when he was first elected MP in 1996. Within two years, he became Minister of State (MoS) in the Central Government. In May 2004, he became a Cabinet Minister, first as Environment and Forest Minister and later as Communication and IT (Information Technology).

Investigators are looking into the companies’ financial details to track the source of their funds. Most of the companies are involved in export and import. Investigators suspect these to be front companies for re-routing money.

Enforcement Directorate officials have already visited Jain offices in New Friends Colony in Delhi and Chennai to look for financial records. They are working closely with the CBI to scan seized computers. Mahesh and Daulat have been questioned to probe their business relationship with Raja and his other family members.

Some of the companies of the JG group under the scanner are: J.G. Software Technology, J.G. IMPEX, J.G Holding and Investment, Deccan Plaza, Clair Technology (India) Ltd, Sambhav Ltd, Osiyan Group and DMCC, a trade commodities company.