MUMBAI: Former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh and his family have laundered Rs 50 crore through companies associated with them, said the Enforcement Directorate in its 7,000-plus pages chargesheet submitted in the special PMLA court on Wednesday.
The chargesheet named Deshmukh’s two sons, Hrishikesh and Salil, and their CA Bhavik Panjwani as accused in the case. The chargesheet includes statements of former chief secretary of Maharashtra Sitaram Kunte and former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh.
The ED is yet to record Hrishikesh and Salil’s statement about the suspicious transactions they found during the investigation. It is stated that during investigation, the ED examined several suspicious deals executed by the companies associated with the Deshmukh family and sources of the funding. The ED inquired with Panjwani and others associated with most of these transactions, but was unable to get satisfactory explanations from
them.
The ED is yet to conclude if state transport minister Anil Parab of Shiv Sena had any role in the case, and the chargesheet does not include the statements of the 12 IPS-SPS officers that had been recorded during investigation. These officers had obtained their postings through the personal recommendation of Deshmukh, and the ED is investigating if it was done for monetary consideration. The ED will continue its investigation to find out if Parab had recommended the names of police officers for specific postings for any consideration.
The ED was unable to get a copy of the report of former state intelligence department commissioner Rashmi Shukla, who had recorded telephone conversations of some influential persons allegedly discussing transfer-posting of police officers in exchange for money.
Earlier in August, the ED had filed its first chargesheet against Deshmukh’s Nagpur-based trust, Shri Sai Shikshan Sanstha, his then private secretary Sanjeev Palande and personal assistant Kundan Shinde, among others, including now-dismissed police officer Sachin Waze.
In the first chargesheet, the ED had established money trail of Rs 4.8 crore cash that Waze had collected from bar owners in Mumbai when he was working with Mumbai police, and the money was diverted to Deshmukh’s trust as donation with the help of hawala operators. Deshmukh has been accused of misusing his post and asking Sachin Waze to collect Rs 100 crore from bar and restaurant owners for him .