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ED files supplementary chargesheet against Anil Deshmukh
The 7,000 page charge sheet, which was filed by the agency before a special court here assigned to hear matters related to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, also named Deshmukh’s two sons.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday filed a supplementary charge sheet against former Maharashtra minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Anil Deshmukh in connection with an alleged money laundering case, an official confirmed.
The 7,000 page charge sheet, which was filed by the agency before a special court here assigned to hear matters related to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), also named Deshmukh’s two sons, Salil Deshmukh and Hrishikesh Deshmukh.
The probe agency earlier filed a charge sheet against 14 accused, including Deshmukh’s private secretary (an additional collector-rank officer) Sanjeev Palande, and personal assistant Kundan Shinde, who were arrested on June 25.
The central agency registered the money-laundering case against Deshmukh on May 11 on the basis of a 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, Singh alleged that Deshmukh 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 ED, 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 was dismissed from service after his arrest in the ‘Antilia’ bomb scare and Mansukh Hiran killing cases.
CBI’s FIR was filed under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
In its first charge sheet on August 23, ED claimed that Vaze collected ₹4.7 crore from various bar owners between December 2020 and February 2021.
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 Nagpur-based Shri Sai Shikshan Sansthan, an educational trust controlled by the Deshmukh family.
The minister was arrested on November 2 after more than 12 hours of questioning at the ED office in south Mumbai, and is currently in judicial custody. He stepped down from his post on April 5.
ED suspects that the Jain brothers were acting on the instructions of Deshmukh’s son, Hrishikesh.
Both Palande and Shinde played an important role in collecting and laundering the unaccounted money, the ED claimed.
The supplementary charge sheet was submitted to the Session’s Court for verification. Once the verification process is completed, the court will take cognisance of the charge sheet and summon the accused accordingly.
Anil Deshmukh’s counsel Inderpal Singh said they were yet to see the supplementary charge sheet as it would be made available to them only after the court took cognizance of it.
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