After rejecting a plea by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for extension of custody of Maharashtra’s former Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal in the money laundering case, a special court on Thursday remanded Bhujbal in judicial custody till March 31.
Judge PR Bhavke, presiding over Prevention of Money laundering Act (PMlA) court, turned down the ED’s application seeking a seven-day-long extension of Bhujbal’s custody, saying “sufficient ground was not made out (by the agency) for further remand“.
Following his remand in judicial custody, sixty-eight-year-old Bhujbal will now be lodged in the high-security Aruthur Road prison.
Bhujbal was arrested on Monday night by the ED after it questioned him for more than 10 hours, in connection with two money laundering cases registered against him, his family members and associates.
Bhujbal is the second member of his family to have been arrested in connection with the money laundering cases registered against him, his son Pankaj, nephew Sameer and others in connection with the two Economic Case Information Reports (ECIRs) registered on June 17 against him, his son Pankaj and nephew Sameer others under the provisions of PMlA. Earlier, his nephew had been arrested on February 1 and is still in judicial custody.
Appearing before the court, Bhujbal claimed that statements of some of the witnesses — used by the ED to book him in the money laundering case— were “lies and concocted stories”.
Alluding to the statement of one of the witnesses who is employee of the Mumbai Education Trust (MET) controlled by the Bhujbal family that he had seen bags of cash being brought to the office, Bhujbal said: “I had gone to the MET office’s guest house late in the night (that day) as I had to catch a flight early in the morning. I had asked the witness in question as to what was he doing there late at night when the people at MET leave for home at 5.30 pm”.
Bhujbal complained to the court that ED officers recorded his statement till 4.30 pm and again turned up to question him further at 11.30 at night.
“I told them they can take my statement early in the morning today. I woke up early today. I told the ED officials that we have to go to the court today, so why were they delaying. They said they were busy with other work and kept me waiting,” he told the court.
The two ECIRs, registered against Chhagan Bhujbal, his son Pankaj, nephew Samir and 19 others, relate to the alleged illegal transactions to the tune of several hundred crores, under the provisions of PMlA. Between 2007 and 2011, Pankaj and Samir were directors of Parvesh Construction, a firm which executes redevelopment projects in Mumbai.
Bhujbal, his son Pankaj and nephew Samir had come under the State ACB’s scanner for the alleged irregularities in handing over the contracts to a developer close to Bhujbals, KS Chamankar for three projects that the PWD had handed to the latter while he was heading the ministry in the previous Democratic Front (DF) government.
On February 24, the State ACB formally registered a charge-sheet against Chhagan Bhujbal, were his son Pankay, nephew Samir and 14 others in a city court here the new Maharashtra Sadan scam case.
The action initiated by the ACB and ED against Bhujbals was in line with a directive given on December 18, 2014. Observing that there was merit in the allegations and there was a clear case of kickbacks and money laundering, the HC division bench comprising Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice BA Colabawala had constituted an SIT --- comprising of the ACB and the ED-- into the allegations that the Bhujbal family-run trust had received kickbacks to the tune of Rs 82 crore from private contractors.
The ED, in its application seeking Bhujbal’s custody filed before the PMlA court on Tuesday last, had charged that the former PWD minister, his family members and associates had caused a loss of staggering Rs 887 crore to the State exchequer.
In a remand application which alleged that “Prima facie there is generation of huge illicit funds and its laundering by the family members and associates of Chhagan Bhujbal”, the ED told the court that Sunil Karve, former charted accountant of Bhujbals and a few market operators had told the agency that shares of Messrs Parvesh Constructions Pvt ltd and Messrs Armstrong Energy Pvt ltd – the two firms owned and controlled by Bhujbals -- were sold to dubious entities against cash at unrealistic high premium of Rs 9900 per share and funds to the tune of Rs 75 crore and Rs 50 crore respectively were channelled by this method.
The ED also told the court that the cash was handed over to the said operators at the office of the Mumbai Education Trust (MET), an educational institution run by the Bhujbals at Bandra in north-west Mumbai. The dubious transactions were entered into from the year 2006 onwards.
The ED also informed the court that the “so-called” Directors of the entities controlled by the Bhujbals were employees of MET like the accountant at MET, the executive assistant to trustees of MET, the wife of the accountant of MET, liaisoning officer, clerk in MET, wife of the executive assistant to trustees of MET, accountant of M/s Parvesh Construction Pvt ltd, family friends, ex-employees of MET and even a driver of MET. All the above deposed and said that they were only signatory directors of the said companies and used to sign documents at the behest of the Bhujbals.