PMLA case against Anil Deshmukh: ED grills Nagpur deputy RTO Bajrang Kharmate

ED sources said he was grilled over his suspected role in the alleged collection of money for ministers for securing plum postings for certain government officials

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday questioned Nagpur’s deputy regional transport officer (RTO) Bajrang Kharmate – said to be a close associate of Maharashtra transport minister Anil Parab – for seven-and-a-half hours, in connection with an alleged money laundering case in which former state home minister Anil Deshmukh is an accused.

The case against Anil Deshmukh was registered after CBI filed an FIR against him on April 21. Deshmukh had said the allegations against him are false. (HT FILE)

Kharmate reached the ED office at noon after he was summoned by the agency. ED sources said Kharmate was grilled over his suspected role in the alleged collection of money for ministers for securing plum postings for certain government officials. His name is said to have cropped up in the statements of some of the witnesses in the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act (PMLA) case against Deshmukh.

Last week, ED had raided some places linked to Kharmate in Pune and had also recorded statements of a few witnesses.

ED suspects that Kharmate has amassed huge properties in the name of his family members. He is also suspected to have owned franchises of some top brands in Pune and also has commercial properties. However, the agency is still collecting evidence to ascertain if the said properties were proceeds of the crime.

Parab had also been summoned by the agency last week. However, he has sought two weeks’ time citing some important public events that he needed to attend.

The money laundering case against Deshmukh was registered after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a first information report (FIR) against him on April 21. Deshmukh had in the past said that the allegations against him are false.

The central agency has alleged that while serving as the home minister, Deshmukh misused his position, and through assistant police inspector Sachin Vaze – who has now been dismissed and is in Taloja jail for his alleged role in the Antilia explosives scare and Mansukh Hiran murder cases – collected ₹4.7 crore from Mumbai’s bars for their “smooth functioning”.

Later, through hawala channels, this money was sent to two brothers in Delhi who operated bogus companies, said the agency. It claimed that at the behest of Deshmukh’s son Hrishikesh, the two brothers diverted the money as donations to Nagpur-based Shri Sai Shikshan Sansthan, an educational trust controlled by the ex-home minister’s family.

ED has also claimed that Vaze told them that a part of the amount collected from the bar owners was to go to an entity – ‘No 1’ – as well as the crime and social service branches of Mumbai Police.

The anti-money laundering agency has also said that Vaze in his statement to ED said he was called to Deshmukh’s official residence and directed to collect ₹3 lakh from every bar and restaurant in the city. He was also given a list of the establishments.

During investigation, ED has identified 24 private entities that are controlled by the Deshmukhs and found that huge sums of money had been transacted among them without any rationale.

“From the analysis of the bank accounts of these companies, it is clear that there is no rationale for the transfers, and thus, it can be said that these series of transactions were meant for inflating balance sheets and layering of money from one company to other,” ED had stated.

The agency then arrested Deshmukh’s personal secretary Sanjeev Palande and assistant Kundan Shinde on June 26, claiming that they had handled the money laundering linked to the extortions for Deshmukh.

In mid-July, the anti-money laundering agency provisionally attached Deshmukh’s properties, worth ₹4.2 crore. The attached assets include a residential flat in Worli valued at ₹1.54 crore and 25 land parcels of book value ₹2.67 crore at Dhutum village at Uran in the neighbouring Raigad district.