A Mumbai court on Wednesday, 9 November, granted bail to Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray faction) leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut in connection with a money laundering case against him by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The court had reserved its order on 21 October on his bail plea after hearing arguments from both sides.
The Patra Chawl land scam case for which Raut was arrested on 1 August, concerns the crucial Patra Chawl Development Project that has been underway in Maharashtra for over a decade.
The ED had alleged a scam of a whopping Rs 1039.79 crore in the project, and part of the mammoth account was traced back to properties owned by Sanjay Raut's wife, Varsha Raut.
He had applied for bail on 7 September contending that ED’s case against him was intended to crush the opposition faced by the ruling party.
He had also argued that the amount shown as proceeds of crime was accounted for and explained.
The Patra Chawl Land Scam Case
In 2007, the Guru Ashish Construction Pvt Ltd was awarded the project of redevelopment of Patra Chawl. The developer had to provide flats to 672 tenants and develop flats for the MHADA. Thereafter, the remaining area was to be sold by the developer.
"The directors of Guru Ashish Constructions mislead MHADA and managed to sell the FSI (floor space index) to nine developers and collected about Rs 901.79 crore without constructing the rehab portion for 672 displaced tenants and MHADA portion," the ED has alleged.
The ED further said in its statement that the construction company acquired an amount of Rs 138 crore from flat buyers under a project named Meadows.
An official statement by the agency alleged that during 2010, part of the proceeds of the alleged money laundering, amounting to Rs 83 lakh, was received by Sanjay Raut's wife Varsha.
This amount was utilised by Varsha Raut for the purchase of a flat in Dadar. Further, eight plots of land at the Kihim beach in Alibaug were also purchased under the names of Varsha Raut and Swapna Patkar, the wife of Sujit Patkar, who is a close associate of Sanjay Raut.
(With inputs from ANI and PTI)
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