A special court designated under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on Tuesday rejected the bail applications of former state home minister Anil Deshmukh’s personal assistant Kundan Shinde and his secretary Sanjeev Palande in the money laundering case concerning the politician.
The court’s detailed order is not yet available. Both Shinde and Palande were arrested on June 26 this year following raids against them and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader in the city and Nagpur.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has alleged that Shinde had collected Rs. 4.7 Crores from Sachin Vaze, who was then the head of the Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU) on behalf of Deshmukh. The politician had allegedly asked Vaze, now in judicial custody in the Antilia case, to collect money from bars and restaurants in the city for being allowed to function smoothly. The agency had claimed he was directly involved in the offence of money laundering.
Regarding Palande too, the agency alleged that he had played an ‘active role’ in money laundering. Vaze in his statement had told the agency that he had heard Rs. 40 crores collected from police officers for favourable transfer postings and that of it, Rs 20 crores was handed to Deshmukh through Palande.
The personal secretary in his statement to the ED has said, the agency claimed, that he used to receive an unofficial list of transfer postings from another minister, which he used to hand over to Deshmukh.
The agency had filed a charge sheet in August against the duo and others and named Sachin Vaze the main accused in the case. Last month, it arrested Deshmukh, who is now in judicial custody.