Mumbai: After the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) launched an investigation against the former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh in April this year, another central agency, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), too has accused him of extortion, bribery and money laundering. After conducting raids at Deshmukh’s residence in Mumbai and Nagpur, the central agency had summoned him to its office in south Mumbai on Saturday, June 26. Deshmukh, however, sought time and is likely to visit the ED office next week. Meanwhile, two of his close associates – Kundan Shinde and Sanjeev Palande – were arrested and sent to ED custody till July 1. Sources in the ED have hinted that Deshmukh’s arrest may take place in the next few days.‘Several companies’In the remand application submitted to the special designated Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court, the ED has claimed that there are at least 11 companies registered under his or his family members’ names. There are 13 other companies registered under the names of people close to him. The agency has accused Deshmukh of using these companies for “irrationally” transferring money in and out of these companies’ accounts. This, according to the ED, was done to “inflate balance sheets and [for the] layering of money from one company to other”.‘Layering’ is a term used to refer to a process of hiding the source of money, often with the help of a series of transfers.ormer Maharashtra Cabinet Minister Anil Deshmukhs personal assistant Kundan Shinde (in pink) being taken to a court by Enforcement Directorate officials in connection with a money laundering case, in Mumbai, Saturday, June 26, 2021. Photo: PTI On June 25, ED sleuths had simultaneously conducted raids at six different premises belonging to directors and shareholders of the companies directly owned by Deshmukh’s family members. Although these companies were owned by Deshmukh’s relatives, the ED has alleged that he had direct control over them. A director of one such company, Vikram Raj Sharma, who the ED calls a “dummy director” in the remand application, has allegedly told the agency that money essential to run the company was provided by Deshmukh’s son Hrishikesh. “He (Sharma) has also clarified that he was unaware about said four companies in which he is either a director or a shareholder and he was signing various documents including cheques at the instruction of Shri Hrishikesh Deshmukh,” the ED has claimed.Sachin Waze and Parambir SinghDeshmukh came under the radar of central agencies following the arrest of the Mumbai police Assistant Police Inspector Sachin Waze in a separate case involving a bomb threat outside Mukesh Ambani’s residence in South Mumbai. Waze’s arrest changed the scene in Mumbai police drastically with the then Police Commissioner, Parambir Singh, accusing Deshmukh of extortion and claiming that Waze’s criminal act was an outcome of the extortion threat he was constantly facing from Deshmukh. Eventually, Parambir Singh was shunted out and has since been facing several criminal and department actions.Also read: ‘Anil Deshmukh Ordered Me to Extort Rs 100 Crore’: Sachin Waze in a LetterParambir Singh’s allegation and a PIL in the Bombay high court by Mumbai-based lawyer Jaishree Patil led to the court allowing CBI to investigate the matter. While CBI has carried out investigation into the allegation of corruptions levelled against Deshmukh, the ED has acted on it by making two arrests under the PMLA law for using various registered companies to misappropriate funds.Deshmukh, the Nationalist Congress Party (to which Deshmukh belongs) and the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition government has maintained that this has been the Bharatiya Janata Party’s vendetta against their government and that Deshmukh has been merely a victim of “political foul play”. NCP chief Sharad Pawar has accused BJP of using central agencies to harass their political opponent. In the investigation so far, the ED has claimed that along with different companies and Deshmukh’s and his family members’ direct and indirect role in them, several witnesses have also levelled specific charges of extortion against him.Bar owners’ allegationsSeveral bar owners and managers in Mumbai, for instance, have allegedly given statements to the ED claiming that meetings were called by arrested and now dismissed police officer Waze. In these meetings, the witnesses have claimed that the “collection of money was discussed for smooth functioning of bars” in the city. “On behalf of 60 bar owners, Shri Jaya Poojari & Shri Mahesh Shetty, bar owner/manager had paid money amounting to Rs. 40 lakhs to Sachin Waze in the month of December, 2020 as good luck money,” the ED has claimed in the remand application. Similarly, another payment of Rs 1.64 crores was made to Waze for bars within the jurisdiction of Zone 1 and Zone VII of Mumbai police commissionerate, the ED has claimed.Param Bir Singh and Anil Deshmukh. Photos: PTI/Twitter Illustration: The WireSeveral orchestra bars within the jurisdiction of Zone VIII to Zone XII had allegedly paid another Rs 2.66 crores to Waze. The ED’s claim is that this money found its way to Deshmukh eventually through several unknown channels. Waze, in his statement, has claimed that he had collected the extortion money and eventually handed it over to Kundan Shinde, the then personal assistant of Deshmukh in two separate instalments – in January and February 2021. A similar role is also attributed to Sanjeev Palande, another personal assistant of Deshmukh’s. Both Shinde and Palande were arrested last evening.‘Charitable trust’The ED has claimed that there is evidence to show that the money that were allegedly extorted by Waze made its way into a charitable trust, Shri Sai Shikshan Sanstha Nagpur, owned and controlled by Deshmukh and his family members. Shinde too is a member of this trust. Several cheques were paid to this trust through many Delhi-based companies, the ED claims. The investigating agency further claimed that these are essentially only ‘paper companies’ and have been used as a frontal organisation only to transfer ill-gotten money.‘Paper companies’ refer to companies formed purely for financial reasons and not to offer goods or services.These paper companies are owned by two brothers, Surendra Jain and Virendra Jain, and apparently the companies have no business to show. Statements by the Jain brothers have been recorded by the ED and according to its remand application, the brothers have claimed that they were approached to transfer the money from their company to the charitable trust. The ED has claimed that Deshmukh’s son Hrishikesh too was actively involved in the transfer of money from a Delhi company to this charitable trust.
