Ex home min Anil Deshmukh and sons in ED charge sheet
MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday filed a supplementary charge sheet against former Maharashtra minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Anil Deshmukh in connection with an alleged money laundering case, an official confirmed.
The 7,000 page charge sheet, which was filed by the agency before a special court here assigned to hear matters related to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), also named Deshmukh’s two sons, Salil Deshmukh and Hrishikesh Deshmukh.
The probe agency had earlier filed a charge sheet against 14 accused, including Deshmukh’s private secretary (an additional collector-rank officer) Sanjeev Palande and personal assistant Kundan Shinde who were arrested on June 25.
The central agency had registered the money-laundering case against Deshmukh on May 11 on the basis of a First Information Report (FIR) filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on April 21 following allegations of corruption levelled by former Mumbai Police commissioner Param Bir Singh.
In a letter to Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on March 20, Singh alleged that Deshmukh had instructed dismissed Mumbai police assistant inspector Sachin Vaze to collect an amount of ₹100 crore every month from restaurants and bars in the state capital.
According to ED, it was on Deshmukh’s instructions that Vaze held a meeting of bar owners from Mumbai and demanded a monthly amount of ₹3 lakh from each of them.
Vaze was dismissed from service after his arrest in the ‘Antilia’ bomb scare and Mansukh Hiran killing cases.
The CBI’S FIR was filed under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
In its first charge sheet on August 23, the ED claimed that Vaze collected ₹4.70 crore from various bar owners between December 2020 and February 2021.
The probe agency claimed that the money was sent to Delhi-based Jain brothers who reportedly operated bogus companies using hawala channels. The Jain brothers reportedly