The evidence against Anil Deshmukh provided by the Enforcement Directorate suggests that the former Maharashtra home minister was actively involved in money laundering, a special Prevention of Money Laundering (PMLA) court has observed in its order rejecting the bail plea of the 72-year-old Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader.
The evidence also indicates that Deshmukh, during his tenure as state minister, exercised undue influence on transfers and postings of police officers, the court added.
Deshmukh resigned from his post on April 5 and was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on November 2 last year.
The order rejecting Deshmukh’s bail plea was pronounced on Monday but a detailed order of the same was made available on Thursday.
The ED investigation, the court said, revealed that approximately ₹10.42 crore was transferred to the bank account of Nagpur-based Shri Sai Shikshan Sansthan, an educational trust controlled by the Deshmukh family, in the garb of donations from Delhi-based paper company of Jain brothers.
“It is pertinent to note that an amount of ₹2.83 crore has been credited during the tenure of the applicant (Deshmukh) as home minister of Maharashtra,” special PMLA judge Rahul Rokade said.
“No reasonable explanation on part of the applicant in respect of the donations received through shell companies. Statement of the applicant is evasive on this aspect of the matter,” the order said.
{{/usCountry}}“No reasonable explanation on part of the applicant in respect of the donations received through shell companies. Statement of the applicant is evasive on this aspect of the matter,” the order said.
{{/usCountry}}“If statements of CA (Deshmukh’s) Sudhir Baheti, hawala operators Surendra Jain and Virendra Jain are considered in juxtaposition with the money trail, prima-facie it can be safely inferred that the applicant is actively involved in money laundering,” it added.
Amid the ongoing probe and in the backdrop of the evidence on record, “it is not possible to record a satisfaction that there are no reasonable grounds to believe that the applicant is guilty of money laundering,” the order said.
As the condition laid down under section 45 of PMLA (offences to be cognizable and non-bailable) was not satisfied, the NCP leader was not entitled to be enlarged on bail. His age and long period of incarceration are not relevant factors for granting bail under PMLA, the order said.
The special court also took note of the alleged corruption that prevailed in transfers and postings of police officers in Maharashtra during Deshmukh’s tenure and the influence he reportedly exercised over transfers and postings.
“One thing is clear from the statements (of witnesses) that an unofficial list of police officers relating to transfers and postings used to be prepared at the instance of the applicant and used to be forwarded to the Police Establishment Board,” the court said.
The Police Establishment Board is a statutory body, comprising only bureaucrats and formed to decide transfers and postings of police officers in order to avoid political interference in policing.
“Prima-facie, there is material to indicate that recommendations received from the applicant used to be included in the final orders prepared by the Police Establishment Board and there is evidence to indicate that the applicant had exercised undue influence over the transfers and postings of police officials,” the court said.
Reacting to the court’s order, Deshmukh’s counsel, Aniket Nikam, said: “We will challenge this observation in the Bombay high court. We firmly believe that we have a very strong case.”
The ED had registered the money-laundering case against Deshmukh on May 11 last year on the basis of an First Information Report (FIR) filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on April 21 following allegations of corruption levelled by former Mumbai Police commissioner Param Bir Singh.
In a letter to Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on March 20 last year, Singh alleged that Deshmukh had instructed dismissed Mumbai police assistant inspector Sachin Vaze to collect an amount of ₹100 crore every month from restaurants and bars in the state capital.
According to the central agency, it was on Deshmukh’s instructions that Vaze held a meeting of bar owners from Mumbai and demanded a monthly amount of ₹3 lakh from each of them. Vaze collected ₹4.7 crore between December 2020 and February 2021, it said.
The probe agency claimed that the money was sent to Delhi-based Jain brothers who reportedly operated bogus companies using hawala channels. The Jain brothers reportedly diverted this money as donations to the Sansthan.
Vaze was dismissed from service on May 12 last year after his arrest in the Antilia bomb scare and Mansukh Hiran killing cases.
The ED suspects that the Jain brothers were acting on the instructions of Deshmukh’s son, Hrishikesh, who has also been questioned.
The CBI’s FIR was filed under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.