A special court, which granted three-day custody to the ED of arrested Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, on Monday said thorough custodial interrogation is necessary but the central agency’s request for eight days’ custody was “not necessary”. Special Judge MG Deshpande told the prosecution that everything in the Patra Chawal land scam case was already documented and available for investigation, therefore, “the prayer for ED custody should be partially allowed”.
Following his arrest in a money laundering case related to the redevelopment of a chawl in Mumbai’s northern suburb of Goregaon, the ED produced Raut before a PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) court in the afternoon amid tight security. The agency had raided his residence in the early hours of Sunday.
The court remanded Raut to ED custody till August 4 after the ED’s counsel requested for eight days’ custody. Deshpande said the custodial interrogation was necessary considering the “scope of the investigation and the volume of the case”.
However, he said, “It cannot be overlooked that a charge sheet has been filed against Praveen Raut (a close aide of Sanjay Raut) long back. Everything is already documented and for the prosecution to investigate. Even the money mark in the bank account of the wife of the accused (Sanjay Raut) can be verified by obtaining the bank statement. Hence, in my opinion, the ED’s long standing for eight days Detention is not necessary.”
“In order to fully investigate the crime, the ED’s prayer for custody should be partly allowed. The accused has been sent to ED custody till August 4.
Raut’s counsel, advocate Ashok Mundargi, told the court that his arrest was politically motivated. “He (Raut) is a patient of heart-related ailment. He also had surgery. The relevant papers have been produced before the court.”
ED’s counsel Hiten Venegaonkar, pleading for longer custody, told the court that Raut was summoned four times but appeared before the agency only once. The lawyer argued that during this time Raut tried to tamper with the evidence and important witnesses in the case. He further told the court that the investigation revealed that Praveen Raut was the frontrunner for Sanjay Raut.
He also argued that Praveen Raut, former director of Guru Ashish Construction Pvt Ltd (GACPL), did not invest a single penny in the redevelopment project, but received Rs 112 crore. He said that investigation shows that Rs 1.6 crore was transferred to the bank accounts of Sanjay and Varsha Raut and the Raut family was benefitted.
The lawyer said that ED’s investigation has revealed that out of this Rs 1.6 crore, a plot was purchased at Kihim Beach in Alibaug.
court case
In 2007, GACPL signed an agreement with the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) to provide new homes to 672 tenants of Patra Chawl, then developed flats for MHADA and sold the remaining area to private developers. . GACPL, Tenants Society and MHADA signed a tripartite agreement for the redevelopment of the chawl, but it remained only on paper. People have been waiting for the last 14 years to get their homes.
According to the ED, Praveen Raut and other GACPL directors did not build a single house for 672 displaced tenants and in fact sold the floor space index to nine private developers for Rs 901.79 crore. Besides this, GACPL also launched a project called The Meadows and received bookings of around Rs 138 crore from flat buyers.
The ED has alleged that the total income of GACPL from these “illegal activities” is Rs 1,039.79 crore. The investigation reveals that Praveen Raut received Rs 100 crore from HDIL and “diverted” it to various accounts of “his close associates, family members and business entities”, including Sanjay Raut’s family.
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