Court extends Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut’s judicial custody till September 19

Sanjay Raut was arrested on August 1 by the ED on allegations of money laundering and irregularities pertaining to the redevelopment of the Patra Chawl

A special court on September 5 extended judicial custody of Shiv Sena's member of parliament Sanjay Raut till September 19 in a 2018 chawl redevelopment case. He continues to be lodged at Arthur Road Jail.

After being questioned for nine hours, Mr. Raut was arrested on August 1 by the Central agency on allegations of money laundering and irregularities pertaining to the redevelopment of the Patra Chawl in Mumbai's Goregaon. It is alleged by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) that the developers, one of them is a close associate of Mr. Raut fraudulently made ₹1,039.79 crore from this scheme and Mr. Raut also benefited from the same.

On August 8, Mr Raut was sent to judicial custody. ED has previously attached assets belonging to Mr Raut and also questioned his wife Varsha in this case.

On August 4, a special Prevention of Money Laundering Court had recorded in its order, "It is a fact that the money trail of Rs 1.17 crore and Rs 1.08 crore did not come before the court. Some more amount has been revealed by ED along with bank statements, I am of the opinion that there is legitimate progress in investigation and certain facts need to be probed by summoning witnesses and confronting the accused."

The case dates back to March 2018 when a First Information Report was registered under the provision of prevention of money laundering act against M/s Guru Ashish Construction, Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited’s (HDIL) promoters Rakesh and Sarang Wadhwan on basis of complaint filed by an executive engineer of Maharashtra Housing and Area Development (MHADA).

According to the ED, M/s Guru Ashish Construction was entrusted with the development of Patra chawl project for rehabilitation of 672 tenants in 47 acres of land. During the relevant time the Wadhawan brothers and Pravin Raut were the directors of M/s Guru Ashish Construction.

As per the agreement, the developer was to provide flats to the tenants and develop flats for MHADA and thereafter the remaining area to be sold by the developer. ED contends the directors of M/s Guru Ashish Constructions misled MHADA and managed to sell the floor space index to nine developers and collected approximately ₹901.79 crore without constructing the rehab portion for 672 displaced tenants and MHADA portion.