ED issues fresh summons to Sanjay Raut for Jul 1 in money laundering case

The ED has issued fresh summons to Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut asking him to appear on July 1 for his questioning in a money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in the redevelopment of a Mumbai chawl and related financial property transactions involving his wife and alleged associates officials said TuesdayThe Rajya Sabha member was issued the first summons for Tuesday but he sought more time citing official commitments and a meeting he was supposed to attend at Alibaug in Raigad district of the stateHis lawyers met Enforcement Directorate officials in Mumbai on Tuesday and sought about twoweeks time for his appearance but the agency gave him relief only till this monthendThe ED summons was served late Monday afternoon so we made an application to seek time because the ED has demanded a few documents Rauts lawyer told reporters after meeting agency officials at their regional office in south Mumbais Ballard Estate areaThe agency wants to question the 60yearold Raut and record his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act PMLAThe development comes as the Shiv Sena battles rebellion from a group of its MLAs putting a question mark on the future of Maharashtras Maha Vikas Aghadi MVA government Rebel Shiv Sena legislators who were first taken to Surat are now camping in GuwahatiRaut held a press conference in the morning and said he will go to the ED the moment he got free I am a lawmaker I know the law Even if the law implementing agencies are working in the wrong way I am a lawabiding person he saidAlso read Maha political crisis Eknath Shinde claims support of 50 Shiv Sena MLAs says will return to Mumbai shortlyOn Monday Raut had termed the EDs summons as a conspiracy to stop him from fighting against their political opponentsIn April the ED provisionally attached assets worth over Rs 1115 crore of Rauts wife Varsha Raut and two of his associates as part of this investigationThe attached properties are in the form of land held by Pravin M Raut Sanjay Rauts aide and a former director of Guru Ashish Construction Pvt Ltd at Palghar Saphale town in Palghar and Padgha in Thane district The attached properties also include a flat in Mumbais suburb Dadar held by Varsha Raut and eight plots at Kihim beach in Alibaug jointly held by Varsha Raut and Swapna Patkar wife of Sujit Patkar a close associate of Sanjay Raut the ED had saidIt is understood that the agency wants to question Sanjay Raut to know about his business and other links with Pravin Raut and Patkar and also about the property deals involving his wifeAfter arresting Pravin Raut in February the ED had said he appears to be acting as a front or in collusion with some influential personsThe agency had said during the probe it was revealed he made payments to certain politically exposed personsIn the Alibaug land deal apart from the registered value cash payments were made to the sellers the agency had allegedPravin Raut was arrested by the ED in a probe linked to a Rs 1034 crore alleged land scam related to the redevelopment of the Patra chawl in Mumbais Goregaon areaHe is in judicial custody at presentGuru Ashish Construction Pvt Ltd was involved in redevelopment of the Patra chawl which had 672 tenants in tenements on 47 acres belonging to the Maharashtra Housing Area Development Authority MHADA the ED had said earlierGuru Ashish is a subsidiary company of Housing Development Infrastructure Ltd HDIL HDIL is under investigation by the ED and few other agencies in connection with the about Rs 4300 crore alleged fraud at the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative PMC BankED said Guru Ashish had entered into a tripartite agreement with the tenants and MHADA to redevelop the chawlAccording to the agreement the ED said the developer had to provide flats to 672 tenants and develop flats for MHADA Thereafter the remaining area was to be sold by the developer The directors of Guru Ashish Constructions misled MHADA and managed to sell the FSI floor space index to nine developers and collected about Rs 90179 crore without constructing the rehab portion for 672 displaced tenants and MHADA portion it saidThis realty company also launched a project called Meadows and took the booking amount of around Rs 138 crore from flat buyers The total proceeds of the crime generated by directors of Guru Ashish Constructions Pvt Ltd through illegal activities was about Rs 103979 crore Part of the proceeds of crime was further transferred to close associates it allegedThe ED probe conducted so far found that around Rs 100 crore were transferred from HDIL to the account of Pravin RautThis amount was further diverted by Pravin Raut to various accounts of his close associates family members his business entities etc it saidDuring 2010 part of the proceeds of crime of Rs 83 lakh was received by Varsha Raut wife of Sanjay Raut directlyindirectly from Madhuri Pravin Raut wife of Pravin Raut This amount was utilised by Varsha Raut for purchase of flat at Dadar east the agency alleged ED investigations found that an amount of Rs 55 lakh was transferred back by Varsha Raut to Madhuri RautThere are various other transactions too it saidA chargesheet was filed by the agency in April against Pravin RautThe agency had questioned Varsha Raut last year in connection with the PMC Bank case and her purported links with Pravin Rauts wifeProbe found that Varsha Sanjay Raut and Madhuri Pravin Raut are partners in Avani Construction and Varsha Raut has received Rs 12 lakh from this entity as overdrawn capital converted to loan on a contribution of mere Rs 5625This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever