Pune/Mumbai, Jul 16 (UNI) The Directorate of Enforcement on Friday provisionally attached assets worth Rs 4.20 Crore of Anil Deshmukh and his family, held in the name of his wife Aarti Deshmukh and company Premier Port Links Private Limited under PMLA.
The attached assets are in the form of one residential flat valued at 1.54 Crore, located at Worli, Mumbai and 25 land parcels of book value Rs 2.67 Crore, located at Dhutum village in Uran, Raigarh District of Maharashtra, an official statement said here.
The ED initiated a money laundering investigation on the basis of an FIR under Section 120-B of IPC, 1860 and section 7 of PC Act 1988 registered by CBI, New Delhi against Anil Deshmukh and others for attempting to obtain undue advantage for improper and dishonest performance of their public duty for collection of funds to achieve the target of Rs 100 Crore per month from various bars, restaurants and other establishments in Mumbai.
Investigation under PMLA revealed that Anil Deshmukh while acting as Home Minister of the state of Maharashtra, with dishonest intention has received illegal gratification of approximately Rs 4.70 Crore in cash from various orchestra bar owners, through Sachin Waze, then Assistant Police Inspector of Mumbai Police.
Further, with the help of Delhi based dummy companies, the Deshmukh family laundered the tainted money worth Rs 4.18 Crore and projected it as untainted by showing the same as amount received by the Shri Sai Shikshan Sanstha Trust.
Investigations further revealed that flat located at Worli, Mumbai which is owned by Anil Deshmukh is registered in the name of his wife Aarti Deshmukh and found that entire payment was made in cash in 2004, however, sale deed was done in month of February 2020 when Anil Deshmukh was Home Minister of State of Maharashtra. Further Deshmukh family has acquired the 50% ownership in M/s Premier Port Links Pvt. Ltd. including its assets i.e. Land & shops valued at approximately Rs 5.34 Crore (Book Value) by merely paying an amount of Rs 17.95 lakh, that too after a substantial gap.
Further investigations are under progress.
The development comes weeks after the central probing agency had summoned the 71-year-old former Maharashtra minister for a hearing of the money laundering case.
Anil Deshmukh belongs to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which is one of its alliance partners.
He had to resign from his post as Maharashtra home minister after he was named in a Rs 100 crore bribery-cum-extortion racket involving the Maharashtra Police. Sacked police officer Sachin Vaze had claimed that he had to extort Rs 4.70 crore from Mumbai bars at the behest of the NCP leader.
The ED had last month arrested Deshmukh’s personal secretary Sanjeev Palande (51) and personal assistant Kundan Shinde (45) after it carried out raids against them and the NCP leader in Mumbai and Nagpur on Friday.
The ED’s case against Deshmukh and others was made after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) first carried out a preliminary inquiry followed by a regular case being filed on the orders of the Bombay High Court.
The court had asked the CBI to look into the allegations of bribery made against Deshmukh by former Mumbai Police commissioner Param Bir Singh.
UNI SP-PK JW2008