ED rejects Sanjay Raut’s request to defer questioning by 14 days, summons him

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut did not turn up at the ED office in Mumbai on Tuesday and sent his lawyer instead who sought time to collect documents required by the agency

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday rejected Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut’s request to put off his questioning in a money laundering case by two weeks in an alleged money laundering case linked to the redevelopment of Patra Chawl in Mumbai’s Goregaon area and ordered him to appear before the agency officials on Friday, July 1, people familiar with the matter said.

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut was told by the Enforcement Directorate to appear at its Ballard Estate office on Friday, July 1. (PTI File)

Raut was summoned to appear before ED officials at Ballard Estate on Tuesday but he sent his lawyer who sought more time.

“We received the first summons on Monday evening. The agency officials had asked us to bring certain documents. As Mr Raut will require some time to collect the documents, we requested the agency officials to grant us 14 days time,” Raut’s lawyer said.

ED officials rejected the request and issued a fresh notice, summoning the Shiv Sena leader to attend their office on Friday, July 1.

Sanjay Raut, 60, on Monday described the summons as a conspiracy to stop him from fighting the Shiv Sena’s rebel legislators led by Eknath Shinde and declared that he would not be able to appear before the agency on Tuesday due to a meeting in Alibaug. The summons came at a time the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena is fighting a bitter battle to save the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government.

According to the ED, the money laundering charges are linked to the redevelopment of Patra Chawl in Mumbai’s Goregaon area and financial transactions purportedly involving his wife, Varsha Raut.

ED’s money laundering case is based on a first information report (FIR) registered by Mumbai Police’s economic offences wing (EOW) in 2018 against Rakesh and Sarang Wadhawan, promoters of real estate company Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL) and main accused in the Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) bank fraud case, Guru Ashish Construction Pvt Ltd, the subsidiary company of HDIL, which undertook the redevelopment project in the Mumbai chawl and its director, Pravin Raut, among others, officials said.

A tripartite agreement was signed between the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA), Guru Ashish Construction and society formed by the tenants for redevelopment of Patra Chawl in Goregaon in 2008. Under the agreement, the developer had to provide flats to rehabilitate 672 tenants as well as build a certain number of flats for MHADA before selling the remaining area, the officials added.

The ED probe revealed that Guru Ashish misled MHADA and collected ₹901.79 crore without constructing the rehab component buildings for 672 displaced tenants and for MHADA. Subsequently, the company launched another project, Meadows, and collected ₹138 crore from flat buyers, officials said.

The total proceeds of the crime generated by Wadhawans and Pravin Raut and identified by the ED is around ₹1,039.79 crore, part of which was reportedly transferred to close associates, including Pravin Raut, the officials added.

Pravin, who was arrested on February 2, is believed to be a close aide of Sanjay Raut. He is also an accused in the PMC bank fraud case.

In a statement in April this year, the ED said that an amount of approximately ₹100 crore was transferred from the account of HDIL to that of Pravin Raut between 2008 and 2010.

“This amount was further diverted by Pravin Raut to various accounts of his close associates, family members, his business entities, etc. It is also revealed that during 2010, part of the proceeds of crime amounting to ₹83 lakhs was received by Varsha Raut, wife of Sanjay Raut, directly/indirectly from Madhuri Pravin Raut, wife of Pravin Raut,” the statement said.

While Varsha used the money to purchase a flat in Dadar, she transferred ₹55 lakh back to Madhuri after a money laundering probe was launched into the matter in 2018, the ED said.

Besides, eight plots of land at Kihim beach in Alibaug were purchased in the name of Varsha Raut and Swapna Patkar, wife of Sujit Patkar who is another close associate of Sanjay Raut, the ED said.

“In this land deal, apart from the registered value, cash payments were made to the sellers,” the agency said in its statement.

As part of its probe, the ED has attached properties worth ₹11.15 crore in April, including the flat in Dadar and plots in Kihim, officials said.

The ED attached Pravin Raut’s immovable assets worth ₹72.6 crore in connection with the PMC bank fraud case in December 2020.