Topsgrup MD approaches PMLA court for discharge

Besides, Sashidharan’s lawyer Kishal Mor moved a plea to not extend their judicial custody in wake of the closure report

Mumbai: Former MD of Topsgrup, Marath Sashidharan, and Amit Chandole, an aide of Shiv Sena MLA Pratap Sarnaik, approached the special PMLA court on Thursday for their discharge as the magistrate court had accepted the closure report.

The court was informed that the magistrate court on Wednesday accepted the closure report, and the complainant too has filed an affidavit clearly stating that he will not challenge the acceptance of the closure report (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

On Thursday, the lawyers for Chandole and Sashidharan approached the court for discharge. Besides, Sashidharan’s lawyer Kishal Mor moved a plea to not extend their judicial custody in wake of the closure report.

The court was informed that the magistrate court on Wednesday accepted the closure report, and the complainant too has filed an affidavit clearly stating that he will not challenge the acceptance of the closure report. In these circumstances, Mor contended that ED had no locus in interfering with the proceeding before magistrate court.

Meanwhile, ED sought time to oppose the plea. The court has given ED time till September 21 to submit the reply.

According to ED, Topsgrup had in 2014 obtained a contract for providing security guards at the projects of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), purportedly in collusion with Shiv Sena leader and MLA Pratap Sarnaik through illegal means by a “well-thought-out strategy.”

The agency claimed that the aim of these illegal manoeuvres was to get inadmissible benefit by inflating the number of contracted security guards deployed, at the cost of MMRDA, and illegal cash gratification to Sarnaik for facilitating this scam.

Against this “active role and criminal conspiracy”, Sarnaik used to get 50 per cent profit earned out of the contract and sometimes the money used to be transferred to the account of a third person, said ED. Amit Chandole accepted the receipt of cash from Topsgrup for the MMRDA projects, ED claimed, adding that, thus, part of the amount received by Topsgrup from MMRDA appeared to be proceeds of crime.