Patel takes Time out to deny charge

"My family owns Millennium. No one else is a partner," Patel said. "There is not even a single paisa worth of property transaction between the Patel family and Hazra Memon," the NCP leader added.

"Everything is with the court receiver of the Bombay High Court. We are nowhere directly looking after the property and neither are we directly in charge of it," Patel said.

Asked if he saw a political motive behind the ED action, Patel said, "You (media) have a better idea as some papers of which even I wasn't aware have come your way."

The former Union minister stressed that Ceejay House property was purchased by Patel's family in 1963 from the Scindias, the erstwhile royal family of Gwalior.

In this building, two floors were transferred to Mirchi's widow, but Patel claims that she had got these through MK Mohammad who earlier owned restaurants on the property that was knotted in legal disputes.

Besides, Patel claimed that Mohammad secured a share in the property through a Bombay High Court order after he proved that he owned a part of the original plot where the Ceejay House is located. The NCP leader pointed out that the entire deal took place under supervision of the court and Mohammad was ordered to pay Rs 700,000 to the court receiver. Later, in April 1980, Mohammad assigned the rights of his property to Hajra Memon, who even paid Rs 7 lakh to the court receiver as ordered earlier. Patel said Hajera Memon got the property deed from Mohammad and neither he nor his family had any financial dealings with her.

"All these issues have been in public domain, she has been a taxpayer, there were no restrictions on her and 20 years ago, she was issued a passport to travel to UAE and Saudi Arabia," he said. The issue has come as a huge embarrassment to the NCP just six days before the October 21 Maharashtra Assembly elections, and Patel cut short his election campaign tour to address the media as the issue threatened to snowball into a huge pre-poll controversy.