A special court in Mumbai on Friday removed the Maharashtra cabinet minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader. Chhagan Bhujbal in the money laundering case filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for which he was arrested in 2016. Bhujbal had spent more than two years in prison in this case until the Bombay High Court granted him bail in 2018.
Along with Bhujbal, his son Pankaj, nephew Sameer and other accused were also acquitted of all charges under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Bhujbal’s lawyers Sajal Yadav and Sudarshan Khawase had filed a dismissal plea alleging that since the NCP leader and others were dismissed in 2021 in the corresponding case filed in connection with the alleged Maharashtra Sadan scam by the state Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), the ED case cannot be continued as per an earlier order of the Supreme Court.
The ACB filed a case against Bhujbal and others in 2015 after a public interest litigation filed in the Bombay High Court sought a probe into alleged irregularities in the award of contracts worth over Rs 100 crore for three projects in 2006, when Bhujbal was minister in the Maharashtra Public Works Department (PWD). The contracts in question were awarded to Chamankar Developers for the construction of Maharastra Sadan in Delhia new Regional Transport Office building in Andheri and a state guest house in Malabar Hill. The ED then filed a separate case alleging money laundering.
The agencies claimed that the contracts were awarded to the company without following proper rules in exchange for bribes to companies and trusts controlled by the Bhujbal family.
The Bhujbals, however, argued that no evidence was found against them and they were discharged in 2021, so the ED case cannot proceed. They also said that the ACB’s discharge order has attained finality as it has not been set aside by the high court since 2021.
With this, only one ACB case remains pending against Bhujbal related to a library in Bombay University.
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