The income tax department provisionally attached properties estimated to be worth over Rs 1,000 crore allegedly belonging to Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar (in pic) and his close relatives under the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act.
- The propertiesinclude an office at Mumbai’s Nariman Point, a flat in Delhi, a resort in Goa and 27 land parcels in different parts of Maharashtra.
- The I-T department had recently conducted searches at these properties. The department had said then it discovered unaccounted income worth Rs 183 crore.
The enforcement directorate will have custody of former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh till November 6.
- Deshmukh was arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act late Monday.
- The agency told the special holiday court that remanded Deshmukh that he was the “prime beneficiary of the proceeds of crime” in a Rs 100 crore money laundering case, and the agency needed to investigate a “foreign angle”.
Maharashtra is governed by an alliance of Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress. Pawar and Deshmukh are senior NCP politicians.
- NCP spokesperson and skill development minister Nawab Malik said Deshmukh was “being framed”. NCP chief Sharad Pawar had earlier slammed the union government for using central agencies to intimidate the alliance and “break our will”.
- Several other key leaders of the alliance are being probed by ED and income-tax authorities, including public works minister Ashok Chavan, transport minister Anil Parab, Sena leaders Pratap Sarnaik, Anandrao Adsul and Bhavan Gawali and NCP leader Eknath Khadse.
- Also: Shiv Sena accused the union government of helping absconding IPS officer Param Bir Singh escape the country after he made “false accusations” against Deshmukh. “He has not absconded, but made to move out of the country,” said Sena MP Sanjay Raut.