ED complaint alleges IREO diverted Rs 1,777 crore of buyer funds

What the Record Shows

The Enforcement Directorate has an open prosecution before the Special Court at Panchkula in which it alleges that funds collected from buyers of the IREO group's Gurugram housing projects were siphoned off and that about Rs 1,777 crore was routed out of India, per its prosecution complaint filed in January 2022. The agency registered the case as ECIR/GNZO/10/2021 on 15 June 2021, and the accused named in the complaint include Lalit Goyal, vice-chairman and managing director of IREO, together with six IREO corporate entities.

The money-laundering investigation rests on a set of predicate FIRs registered between 2018 and 2020 by the Haryana Police, the Delhi Police and the Delhi Economic Offences Wing under Sections 120-B, 420, 467 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code, on complaints by allottees of IREO residential projects, according to the record before the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The prosecution complaint, numbered COMA/01/2022, was filed under Sections 44 and 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.

Goyal was arrested on 16 November 2021 and was subsequently granted bail, as recorded in the High Court proceedings. The ED alleges it identified proceeds of crime of about Rs 1,376 crore and that IREO diverted more than Rs 400 crore of its funds through entities of the M3M group, per the order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court dated 31 October 2023 - the two figures together approximate the roughly Rs 1,777 crore the agency says left the country.

A prosecution complaint, the PMLA equivalent of a chargesheet, contains allegations, not findings of guilt. Goyal and the other accused are presumed innocent unless and until a court convicts them, and the trial is pending.

How It Worked

The mechanism the ED describes in its complaint begins with ordinary home purchases. Buyers of IREO's Gurugram plots and apartments booked units and handed over money in stages, but in many cases possession did not follow, and the agency alleges those collections were siphoned off rather than applied to construction, per the material summarised in the High Court judgments.

From there, the agency alleges, money was moved out of India through a series of corporate transactions, including share buybacks and redemptions, according to the ED's case as recorded by the Delhi High Court. The ED further alleges that more than Rs 400 crore of IREO funds was diverted through the M3M group of companies, per the Punjab and Haryana High Court order of 31 October 2023.

The procedural sequence is the standard PMLA chain. The predicate FIRs of 2018 to 2020 supplied the scheduled offences; the ED registered ECIR/GNZO/10/2021 in June 2021; Goyal was arrested in November 2021; the first prosecution complaint followed in January 2022; and a supplementary prosecution complaint was filed on 4 August 2023 naming a wider set of individuals and corporate entities, including a director of the M3M group, at the cognizance stage, according to the High Court record.

During the ED's attachment of IREO properties, the agency documented a set of land arrangements between IREO and M3M. These included collaboration agreements covering about 22.62 acres at Sector 61 and about 30.26 acres at Sector 58 in Gurugram, and five development agreements for about 78 acres at Bhiwadi in Rajasthan, with M3M reported to have paid Rs 700 to 800 crore for development rights. These are described in the record as land transactions the ED noted while attaching assets; nothing in them has been adjudicated as wrongdoing, and the M3M directors named in the related proceedings have contested the case against them.

Every element above is an allegation in a pending prosecution. None has been tested at trial.

Who Lost Money

The people at the centre of the matter are homebuyers - the allottees of IREO's Gurugram residential projects who, on the allegations, paid for plots and flats they did not receive on time. The predicate FIRs were filed by such allottees, which is what set the criminal machinery in motion.

The headline figure - about Rs 1,777 crore that the ED alleges was diverted, of which roughly Rs 1,376 crore was identified as proceeds of crime - is the amount the agency says was taken out of the legitimate flow of the projects, not a sum that has been returned to buyers. As is usual in PMLA matters, attachment of assets is a step towards eventual restoration, but it is not the same as recovery: attached properties remain frozen while proceedings run, and any distribution to victims follows only after the case concludes.

For anyone weighing a home purchase against the risk of a stalled project, the practical exposure is the gap between what is paid upfront and what construction actually reaches. A home-loan EMI calculator shows how much a buyer commits over a full tenure - money that, in a delayed project, services a loan against an asset not yet delivered. How much of the IREO sums will ever reach buyers depends on the trial and on parallel insolvency and consumer-forum processes, which remain unresolved.

Where It Stands Now

The PMLA prosecution complaint against Goyal and the IREO entities is pending trial before the Special Court, and no conviction has been recorded in it. Goyal, arrested in November 2021, is on bail. The supplementary complaint of August 2023 brought further respondents into the matter at the cognizance stage, and challenges to the arrest and to the proceedings have travelled up to the High Courts and, in a related strand, to the Supreme Court.

A crucial distinction must be drawn, because two very different cases involve overlapping names. On 21 April 2026, a CBI Special Court in Haryana discharged Goyal and four others - including an M3M director and a serving judicial officer - in a separate corruption case concerning the alleged bribery of that judge, citing a lack of evidence. That discharge relates only to the corruption case; it did not decide, and does not touch, the ED's pending homebuyer-funds allegations. In plain terms: Goyal is an accused in the PMLA case, was discharged in the corruption case, and has been convicted in neither.

A prosecution complaint contains allegations, not findings of guilt; the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and due process continues.

What It Means

The IREO matter shows how a housing-sector collapse becomes a money-laundering case: buyer complaints become police FIRs, the FIRs become the predicate for an ED investigation, and the ED then traces where the collected money is said to have gone. It also shows how slowly this works - an ECIR from 2021 remains, years later, a pending trial. It sits alongside other housing-sector matters in the enforcement archive where the ED has alleged diversion of homebuyer funds, such as the cases involving Supertech and Unitech.

For a buyer, the protective lesson is procedural, not dramatic. Money paid into a residential project can be checked against the safeguards that now exist: a project's registration and escrow arrangements under the relevant RERA authority, the developer's litigation and attachment history, and the pace of actual construction against the payment schedule. An attachment order, when it appears, tells a prospective buyer that assets are frozen - useful information, but a signal about risk already crystallised, not a route to a refund.

The broader point is one of sequence. An accusation, an arrest, an attachment and a prosecution complaint are all investigation-stage events. A finding of guilt is a separate thing that only a completed trial can deliver, and in this matter that has not happened.

FAQ

Does this mean the people the ED named are guilty?

No. A prosecution complaint contains allegations, not findings of guilt; the accused, including Lalit Goyal, are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and due process continues. The trial in the ED's homebuyer-funds case is pending and no conviction has been recorded.

What exactly did the Enforcement Directorate allege?

Per its prosecution complaint filed in January 2022 in ECIR/GNZO/10/2021, the ED alleges that funds collected from IREO homebuyers were siphoned off and that about Rs 1,777 crore, of which roughly Rs 1,376 crore was identified as proceeds of crime, was diverted, including more than Rs 400 crore said to have been routed through the M3M group.

Was Lalit Goyal cleared by the April 2026 discharge?

No, and the two matters must not be confused. The discharge on 21 April 2026 was in a separate corruption case about the alleged bribery of a judicial officer, and the court cited a lack of evidence. It did not decide the ED's pending homebuyer-funds allegations, which continue.

Have IREO homebuyers got their money back?

Not through this case. The sums the ED cites are alleged diversions, and attached assets remain frozen while proceedings run. Any restoration to buyers would follow the conclusion of the trial and related insolvency and consumer-forum processes, which are unresolved.

How can I check whether a housing project is safe to buy into?

Verify the project's registration and escrow status with the relevant state RERA authority, check the developer for pending litigation or attachment orders, and match construction progress against the payment schedule before committing further instalments.

Where can I read the official record?

The prosecution complaint's details are summarised in the Punjab and Haryana High Court order dated 31 October 2023 and in related Delhi High Court judgments, all available on Indian Kanoon.

This report is based on the order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court dated 31 October 2023 in the IREO PMLA matter and related High Court records reviewed on 1 August 2026.