Pankaj Bhujbal, 2 others get bail

MUMBAI: The special court for Prevention of Corruption Act on Wednesday granted bail to Pankaj Bhujbal, son of former deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal , and

MUMBAI: The special court for Prevention of Corruption Act on Wednesday granted bail to Pankaj Bhujbal, son of former deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal , and two other accused in connection with the Maharashtra Sadan scam.

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In June, the special court had given last chance to Pankaj, who also has a non-bailable warrant issued against him in a money laundering case, to appear before the court after he failed to abide by the summons issued to him by the court. However, he appeared before the special court on Wednesday after the Bombay high court gave Pankaj an interim protection from arrest.

Besides Pankaj, the special court also granted bail to Tanvir Shaikh and Sanjay Joshi. With this, all the accused in the Maharashtra Sadan scam are currently out on bail.

The special court had issued summons to all the 17 accused in May, out of which one died during the course of investigation. The Anti-Corruption Bureau had then alleged that Chhagan Bhujbal misused his official position to ensure gains to the contractor, causing huge loss to the state exchequer. In its charge sheet, the ACB cited that the government norms clearly state that a contractor should not earn profits exceeding 20% for the project he has been allotted. But the agency alleged that in this case, the contractor made a whopping 81.9%profit. The ACB claimed that the firm’s account books were fudged to show that the profit earned by the contractor was a mere one per cent. The Bombay HC, in December, 2014, had constituted a Special Investigation Team comprising the ED and the state anti-corruption bureau to conduct the inquiry against politician and others.