JOIN USED attaches Sanjay Raut's property in Patra Chawl land scam case
In a development that rattled the Maha Vikas Aghadi dispensation, the Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday attached properties of journalist-politician Sanjay Raut, the Man Friday of Maharashtra chief minister and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray.
Last month, the ED attached properties linked to business entities of Thackeray’s brother-in-law Shridhar Patankar in another case.
The action against the Shiv Sena trouble-shooter and chief spokesperson was in connection with its probe into the Rs 1,040-crore floor space index (FSI) fraud at Patra Chawl at Goregaon suburbs of Mumbai.
60-year-old Raut, who is in New Delhi to attend the Parliament session, immediately spoke to Thackeray and NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, the chief architect of the anti-BJP coalition in Maharashtra.
It may be mentioned, Raut has been in the forefront and had been accusing the BJP-led NDA of misusing central agencies and leaving no chance to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his trusted aide and Union home minister Amit Shah.
The ED has attached eight plots of land at Saphale in Palghar district, Alibaug in Raigad district and a flat in a 32-storeyed building in Dadar in, Mumbai, which is in the name of Varsha Raut, the wife of Raut and Swapna Patkar, the wife of Sujit Patkar.
The total value of the attached assets is Rs 11,15,56,573.
“…satyamev jayate…,” Raut tweeted after the provisional attachment order.
Later speaking to reporters in the national capital, he said: "I am not the one who will get scared. Seize my property, or shoot me, or send me to jail, I am Balasaheb Thackeray's follower and a Shiv Sainik….I will fight it out and expose everyone. I am not the one to stay quiet, let them make merry. The truth will prevail.”
“If the allegations are proved, I will leave politics and public life…(the properties) have come from hard earned money,” Raut, who is the executive editor of Saamana, the mouthpiece of Shiv Sena, told a Marathi news channel.
The MVA partners rallied behind Raut and decided to fight it out after the ED carried out the action under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
It may be mentioned, last month the ED had arrested businessman Pravin Raut, who is known to be close to Raut, in connection with the case - and a few days ago filed the chargesheet.
As far as the case goes, Guru Ashish Construction Pvt Ltd was involved in the re-development of this ‘chawl’ which had 672 tenants in tenements on 47 acres of land belonging to Maharashtra Housing Area Development Authority (MHADA).
Guru Ashish Construction Pvt Ltd is a subsidiary company of Housing Development Infrastructure Ltd. (HDIL), which is already under investigation by the ED vis-a-vis Rs 4,300 crore alleged fraud at the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank.
The construction company had entered into a “tripartite agreement’ with the tenants and MHADA to redevelop the Patra Chawl. The developer had to provide flats to 672 tenants and develop flats for MHADA and thereafter the remaining area 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 901.79 crore without constructing the rehab portion for 672 displaced tenants and MHADA portion. “The total proceeds of the crime generated by the directors of Guru Ashish Construction Pvt Ltd through the illegal activities was around Rs 1,039.79 crore,” the ED statement points out.
The ED said Rs 100-crore was transferred to the HDIL accounts of Pravin Raut, and later diverted to other entities and his family members.
In the recent past, the ED also attached properties of senior Shiv Sena leader and three-time MLA Pratap Sarnaik vis-a-vis National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) scam. Besides, the I-T raided the home and properties linked to senior Shiv Sena leader Yashwant Jadhav.
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