Lawyer Satish Uke, brother sent to ED custody till April 6

Mumbai: A special PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) court on Friday remanded activist-lawyer Satish Uke and his elder brother Pradip to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody till April 6

Mumbai: A special PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) court on Friday remanded activist-lawyer Satish Uke and his elder brother Pradip to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody till April 6. The brothers were arrested from Nagpur on Thursday evening in connection with a money laundering case registered against them in February. Advocate Satish Uke has filed several cases against BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis, including one for filing a false election affidavit.

The brothers were arrested from Nagpur on Thursday evening in connection with a money laundering case registered against them in February (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT PHOTO)

Both were produced before special PMLA judge Girish Gurav for remand. ED counsel, Hiten Venegaonkar, informed the court that the agency’s case against the Uke brothers was registered on February 17, based on two FIRs against them at Ajni Police station in Nagpur.

One of the cases was registered on January 23, 2022, based on a complaint lodged by one Mohammad Jaffar, nephew of late Mohammed Samad, who alleged that the Uke brothers had usurped their 5-acre land at Bokhara in Nagpur by creating fake documents.

The second FIR registered on July 31, 2018, is based on a complaint lodged by one Shobharani Nalode, secretary of Aishwari Sahakari Grih Nirman Sanstha, alleging that the Uke brothers had usurped the society’s 1.5-acre land at Babulkheda in Nagpur.

The agency said that the land at Babulkheda was transferred in the name of Satish Uke and others using a purportedly fabricated Power of Attorney held by one Chandra Matthe on March 16, 2001. Original owners of the land had sold the land to the housing society, which claimed that they had never given any power of attorney to Matthe.

According to the agency, Jaffar’s statement revealed that the brothers conspired and created fake documents of Nikahnama to show the marriage of his late uncle with one Khairunisa Shaikh Hakim and under the pretext of helping her, they grabbed the land by creating fake documents.

Venegaonkar informed the court that the money from the said land deals was laundered by the Uke brothers.

Advocate Ravi Jadhav appearing for the brothers complained that they were produced before the court after 24 hours, in complete breach of legal provisions. Besides, he said, they did not give him any notice, did inform him of the grounds of arrest and handed him the summons to join their investigation only at 10.30 am on Thursday.

Jadhav pointed out that Uke has been fighting high-profile cases against some influential people and the arrest was nothing but a counter-blast and a clear case of political vendetta.

Uke himself informed the court that six cases have been registered against him in connection with one land deal. “I have filed a petition challenging electoral affidavits of former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and was supposed to depose in the case on April 9. I am sure in that matter will be a trouble for Fadnavis. I had also filed a petition after the death of judge Loya, they have been demanding several papers from me. I was already attacked after the petition was filed and the police then refused to take the case. All the deals are legal and there is no forgery. I had filed a cheating case against Mehrunnisa for selling one piece of land to two people.”

Uke has been in the news after he filed a petition against Fadnavis, seeking initiation of criminal proceedings against him for the “non-disclosure” of criminal cases in his election affidavit. He had alleged Fadnavis had filed a false affidavit in 2014 by hiding two criminal cases of cheating and forgery - registered against him in 1996 and 1998.

Uke had also petitioned the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court seeking a police probe into the “suspicious and untimely” death of CBI judge B H Loya, who conducted the trial in the fake encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Shaikh and his wife. Loya died in Nagpur in 2014.

Uke is also the lawyer for Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole, who has filed a ₹500 crore defamation suit in a civil court against IPS officer and former state intelligence chief Rashmi Shukla and others for alleged illegal tapping of his phone.