Bombay High Court adjourns Enforcement Directorate’s plea to cancel Sanjay Raut’s bail

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray faction) leader and MP is on bail granted by a special trial court in an alleged money laundering case related to the Patra Chawl redevelopment project

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday adjourned a plea for cancellation of bail granted by a special trial court to Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray faction) leader and Member of Parliament Sanjay Raut in an alleged money laundering case related to the Patra Chawl redevelopment project to February 3.

On November 11, 2022 a special court granted bail to Mr. Raut in the case and noted, “He was arrested for no reason and the arrest was illegal.” Soon, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) moved the High Court seeking a stay on the execution of the bail order.

After being questioned for nine hours on June 28, 2022 Mr. Raut was arrested on August 1 by the ED on allegations of money laundering and irregularities pertaining to the redevelopment of the Patra Chawl in Mumbai’s Goregaon area. It is alleged by the ED that the developers, one of whom is a close associate of Mr. Raut, fraudulently made ₹1,039.79 crore from this scheme and Mr. Raut also benefited from the same. According to the ED: “Mr Raut has played a major role in the offence through his proxy and confidant Pravin Raut. The case dates to March 2018 when a First Information Report was registered under the provision of prevention of money laundering against M/s Guru Ashish Construction, Housing Development, and Infrastructure Limited’s promoters Rakesh and Sarang Wadhawan on basis of complaint filed by an executive engineer of Maharashtra Housing and Area Development (MHADA).”

The special court’s order pointed out, “From the record materials and the discussion made it is clear how Pravin Raut is arrested for a pure civil litigation, whereas, Sanjay Raut for no reason. This truth is glaring.” The court questioned MHADA’s conduct and observed, “The conduct of MHADA right from the beginning, till date is suspicious. Even ED admitted the same in their complaints, yet ED has not made any staff of MHADA an accused. MHADA’s attitude as such lodging FIR on one fine morning, can neither throw dust in the eyes of the court nor can brush off and wash out, long civil litigation, which were even acknowledged by the High Court.”