Court rejects pre-arrest bail of BJP MLC in bank scam

The case involves forged and fabricated documents submitted by Pravin Darekar

A special court rejected the anticipatory bail plea by a Maharashtra Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Pravin Darekar, in a money laundering case involving a bank scam.

Special Prevention of Money Laundering Act judge Rahul Rokade held that a prima facie case is made out, and rejected the pre-arrest bail granted to Mr. Darekar for protection from arrest till March 29 for him to approach the High Court.

The case involves forged and fabricated documents submitted by Mr. Darekar, on the basis of which he became a member of Pratigya Labour Cooperative Society, and the Society authorised him to represent it in the elections of the Mumbai District Co-operative Bank.

The complaint against Mr. Darekar is that he deprived the actual labour from their right to be a member of the Society and also by virtue of that, he had become a director of the bank. The Mumbai Police told the special court, “There are a total of 15 criminal cases registered against him and this itself disqualifies him from any relief.”

The police affidavit pointed out, “While filing the affidavit in 2016 for MLC elections, Mr. Darekar had mentioned that he and his family own property worth ₹2.13 crore, of which property to the tune of ₹91 lakh belonged to him, and that as a Member of the Legislative Council, he got ₹2.5 lakh per month. Thus, the BJP leader is not a labourer.”

The complainant in the case is Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Dhananjay Shinde. A first information report (FIR) was registered against Mr. Darekar on March 14 under Section 199 (false statement made in declaration which is by law receivable as evidence), Section 200 (using as true such declaration knowing it to be false), Section 406 (punishment for criminal breach of trust), Section 417 (punishment for cheating), Section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), Section 465 (punishment for forgery) and Section 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) of the Indian Penal Code.