Mumbai: Businessman Pravin Raut made payments to certain ‘politically exposed persons’ (PEP), the Enforcement Directorate (ED) told a special court on Wednesday, while seeking his extended custody for four days. The court extended his custody till Friday.
The agency said in its remand report filed before the court that it appeared that he was acting as a front or in collusion with some influential persons. Regarding the payments, the directorate elaborated that Raut had paid Rs 55 lakh to the wife of a PEP through the account of his wife. It said the money was returned after 10 years without interest, only after it started probing the matter.
It may be noted that the ED had questioned Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut’s wife Varsha Raut in connection with the Rs 55 lakh transfer.
Without naming the Sena MP, the remand report also mentioned that bookings of tickets and hotel accommodations of the PEP for domestic as well as international travel were made from the funds of Pravin Raut.
It further said that based on specific leads, it had conducted raids on the residence of Sujit Patkar. Patkar is a business partner of Sanjay Raut’s daughters. The agency said during the raid it found property documents of ‘the same influential person’. It probed the sellers regarding the land deals and found that they had been coerced into selling their properties, it stated. It said the registration of the lands took place at ‘very low value’ than market value. “Source of the funds given to the sellers in cash for purchase of the land is being ascertained. It is suspected that huge amounts of unaccounted cash in crores has been paid to the sellers to acquire these properties at highly undervalued registration value,” the remand application read.
Pravin Raut’s advocate Ajay Bhise opposed the extended custody and argued that the agency was seeking the extension on the same grounds that it had done earlier.
The businessman had been arrested on February 2 in connection with money laundering related to the Patra Chawl redevelopment project in Goregaon by a building firm, Guruashish Constructions Pvt. Ltd., in which he was director, along with Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited’s (HDIL) Rakesh and Sarang Wadhawan.
