MUMBAI: Jailed Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut has moved a court here for bail claiming that he had nothing to do with the Patra Chawl money laundering case as alleged by the Enforcement Directorate. The case against him was a "perfect example" of political vendetta, he said.
Raut was arrested by the ED in the alleged Patra Chawl redevelopment scam here on August 1. He is now in judicial custody.
Special judge for Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) cases M G Deshpande on Thursday directed the central agency to file a reply to the bail plea by September 16.
As per the ED, the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) awarded the Patra Chawl tenement redevelopment project in suburban Goregaon to Guru Ashish Construction Pvt Ltd (GACPL), a sister company of HDIL (Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd).
GACPL was supposed to provide flats for the chawl tenants through redevelopment and sell the remaining land to private developers, but the tenants did not get flats even after 14 years, the ED said.
The company did not redevelop the tenement but sold land parcels to other builders for Rs 1,034 crore and also launched its own project, it alleged.
Pravin Raut, a close associate of Sanjay Raut, and other directors of Guru Ashish Constructions misled MHADA, it said.
Pravin Raut was allegedly one of the directors along with Sarang and Rakesh Wadhawan of HDIL, prime accused in the PMC bank scam.
Sanjay Raut "is nowhere connected to Guru Ashish Construction, HDIL or Patra Chawl," the bail application said.
The case against the Shiv Sena leader was a "perfect example of abuse of power and political vendetta", and he has been "victimized to forcibly crush the opposition faced by the ruling party," it further alleged.
The Rajya Sabha member is accused of receiving `proceeds of crime' amounting to Rs 1.06 crore from Pravin Raut's wife and two other developers.
The bail plea claimed that Rs 55 lakh of it was a loan from Pravin Raut's wife and it was paid off. Rs 37.50 lakh received from one of the developers was the investment Sanjay Raut had made in the project, it said.
Later he pulled out of it as a dispute arose between landowners and tenants and Raut received "limited profit", it claimed.
The application also claimed that in the alleged Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank scam, the ED claimed that Rs 112 crore received by Pravin Raut was `proceeds of crime' in that case, but in the present case it claims the same amount to be proceeds of sale of FSI in the Patra Chawl project.
The ED cannot show the same amount as proceeds of crime in two different cases, it contended.