Mumbai: After producing Raut before a special PMLA court on Monday, the ED has been granted custody of Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut until 4th August in connection with the Patra Chawl land scam. The Mumbai court in its order said “Considering the compass of enquiry and volume of the matter, custodial interrogation is necessary.”
Special judge MG Deshpande added, “It cannot be ignored that a charge sheet has already been filed against Pravin Raut (Sanjay Raut’s close aide) long ago. Everything is already documented and available for prosecution to investigate. Even the trail of money in the accused’s (Sanjay Raut) wife’s bank account can be investigated by obtaining bank statements. Therefore, in my opinion, long ED custody for eight days is not warranted.”
During the first legal proceedings of the case, the court noted that the probe agency alleged that Raut cheated tenants and the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority by selling FSIs to third-party developers. It documented that the alleged laundered money summed to Rs 1,039.79 crore. Based on the file submitted by the ED it recorded that the Rajya Sabha speaker of Shiv Sena and his family siphoned, layered, and integrated Rs 1.06 crore through Pravin Raut.
Sanjay Raut was arrested after a team from the probe agency reached his residence in Mumbai’s Bhandup area to conduct a search and questioned him for six hours. He was taken into custody at 12:05 am on Monday under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) as he was not cooperating in the probe, the officials claimed. A sum of Rs 11.5lakh was also seized during the search operation, officials from the agency added.
The probe was called in connection to alleged financial irregularities in the Patra Chawl redevelopment and related disproportionate transactions involving his wife and associates.