Now, Sanjay Raut's wife Varsha receives ED summons in money laundering case

Varsha Raut summons: The ED said summons were issued after transactions done on Varsha Raut's account came to light.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday summoned Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut's wife Varsha in connection with alleged money laundering in the Patra ‘Chawl’ redevelopment case. The summons came hours after Raut's ED remand was extended by the court in the case.

File photo of Varsha Raut, wife of Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut. (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT Photo)

The ED said summons were issued after transactions done on Varsha Raut's account came to light. During Thursday's hearing in the court on Sanjay Raut ED custody, the ED said an amount worth ₹1.08 crore was received in the account of Varsha Raut from unrelated persons. The Rajya Sabha MP was arrested late Sunday night after hours of raid at his reside.

The ED has alleged financial irregularities in the redevelopment of Patra 'chawl' and related financial property transactions involving the Sena MP's wife and alleged associates.

In April, the ED had provisionally attached assets worth over ₹11.15 crore belonging to Varsha Raut and two of his associates as part of this investigation.

The attached properties are in the form of land held by Pravin M Raut, Sanjay Raut's aide and a former director of Guru Ashish Construction Pvt Ltd, at Palghar, Saphale (town in Palghar) and Padgha (in Thane district).

These assets also include a flat in Mumbai's suburb Dadar held by Varsha Raut and eight plots at Kihim beach in Alibaug jointly held by Varsha Raut and Swapna Patkar, wife of Sujit Patkar, a "close associate" of Sanjay Raut, the ED had said.

The agency's intensified moves come days after the Uddhav Thackeray-led coalition government collapsed due to a rebellion by Eknath Shinde, who then took over as Maharashtra chief minister with BJP's Devendra Fadnavis as his deputy.