Thursday, February 23 2006 20:02 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: A day after searches were carried out at 30 places in four cities in connection with the alleged scam in the IPOs of IDFC and YES Bank, the CBI today (Feb 23 2006) arrested seven people, while the main accused Roopalben N Panchal continued to remain elusive.

The CBI arrested Dipakbhai Panchal, Parag Xaveri, Deren Vohra, J S Wadia from Ahmedabad and taken on a transit remand to Mumbai, sources in the investigating agency said.

Three others - Purushottam Bhudwani, Manoj Deb and Dushyanth Dalal - who were arrested in Mumbai were produced before a designated court in Mumbai, which remanded them in CBI's custody till March 1.

Deran Vora is the son of Hasmukhlal Vora, from whom the CBI recovered Rs 46 lakh cash during its search operations yesterday.

The searches at Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad, were carried out after the CBI registered two cases in connection with the IPO scam in a designated court at Mumbai against 21 people for allegedly cornering large number of shares meant for retail investors in the IPO of IDFC and YES Bank.

The case mainly involves Roopalben Panchal, her brother-in-law Deepakbai and her sister Devangani and some unknown bank officials. Roopalben has been absconding since the raids took place in this connection.

The CBI was scrutinising the documents it had recovered during the raids yesterday, the sources said, adding that SEBI was likley to handover some more similar cases to the CBI for investigations.