Nawab Malik moves Bombay HC for bail in connection with money laundering case

Former Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik has moved the Bombay High Court seeking bail in a money laundering case linked to a land deal in which fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim and his aides were involved.

Malik's plea, filed through advocates Taraq Sayed and Kushal Mor, was on Monday mentioned before a single bench of Justice M S Karnik. The HC posted the matter for hearing on Tuesday. The 62-year-old politician approached the HC after a special court rejected his bail plea on November 30.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Malik, a senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader, in February this year. He is in judicial custody and currently undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Mumbai.

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Prima facie, there was evidence to indicate a "conspiracy" between Hasina Parkar (Ibrahim's sister), Salim Patel (alleged associate of Ibrahim) and Malik to grab the land owned by Munira Plumber and her mother Mariyum Goawala, special judge R N Rokade, had said while denying bail to Malik.

The special court had also noted the former Maharashtra minister “is in continuous possession of tainted property” through a firm, owned by his family. The ED's case against Malik is based on an FIR filed recently by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) against Dawood Ibrahim, a designated global terrorist and key 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts accused, and his aides under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.