Former Maharashtra minister Chhagan Bhujbal’s son and nephew, Pankaj Bhujbal and Sameer Bhujbal respectively, have approached the special court on Thursday seeking to drop proceedings against them in a money laundering case for want of a scheduled offence.
They moved the plea following recent Supreme Court judgement which ruled that if the scheduled offence does not exist, the accused cannot be charged with money laundering under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) based on that offence.
According to the provisions of the PMLA, the Enforcement Directorate can initiate action against a person only if there is a scheduled offence (First Information Report registered prior).
Pankaj Bhujbal, Sameer Bhujbal and Chhagan Bhujbal and 51 others were charged by Enforcement Directorate in 2016 for various offences, including the alleged Maharashtra Sadan scam.
Along with Sameer and Pankaj Bhujbal, other accused in the case -- Sanjay Joshi, Tanvir Shaikh, Satyen Kesarkar and Rajesh Dharap – have also moved plea to drop proceedings against them.
Initially, the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) had registered an FIR against them in connection with the construction of Maharashtra Sadan. Also a case was registered against them by Taloja police in Navi Mumbai in a cheating case relating to construction of a proposed residential building.
Based on these FIRs, ED registered a case against them. However, the six have been discharged in the ACB and the Navi Mumbai cases.
The application, filed through advocates Vijay Agarwal and Sudarshan Khawase, states that in light of SC guidelines and that their discharge in the scheduled offences, the special court has no jurisdiction to proceed against them.
Chhagan Bhujbal, who is also an accused in the case, has not been named in the plea as his discharge application in one of the ACB cases is still pending.
The special court has asked the ED to file it reply by October 7.
Last month, the PMLA court discharged Babulal Varma and Kamalkishore Gupta of Omkar Group were accused in a case where Yes Bank was defrauded to the tune of Rs. 410 crores. They were in custody since January 2021. They were granted reprieve since the case registered against them in Aurangabad in 2020 had been closed. It was based on this cheating offence that the money laundering case had been registered.
Early this month, actor and businessman Sachiin Joshi accused in a money laundering case too sought discharge in citing parity with main accused Omkar Group promoters Babulal Varma and Kamalkishore Gupta who had already got the relief recently based on the ruling.
(To receive our E-paper on whatsapp daily, please click here. To receive it on Telegram, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)
