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PMLA court discharges Chhagan Bhujbal, kin in Maharashtra Sadan case
A Mumbai special court has discharged Nationalist Congress Party leader Chhagan Bhujbal, his son Pankaj, and nephew Sameer in a money-laundering case. The court also discharged companies linked to the family. The Enforcement Directorate had accused them in a case related to the Maharashtra Sadan scam.
Mumbai: A special court here on Friday discharged senior Nationalist Congress Party leader Chhagan Bhujbal, his son Pankaj and nephew Sameer in a money-laundering case linked to the alleged multi-crore Maharashtra Sadan scam.
The court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Mumbai also discharged companies linked to the Bhujbal family in the case.
The Enforcement Directorate had accused the Bhujbals of getting kickbacks for awarding contracts to build a new Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi to a particular builder when the NCP leader was the PWD minister in Maharashtra.
The agency arrested Bhujbal and his nephew in February 2016. The Bombay High Court granted them bail in 2018.
In its order, the special court held that in the absence of a predicate offence and with attachment proceedings having failed, continuation of the PMLA case would be a “dead wood” exercise. It noted that the alleged money laundering was based on two predicate offences—one registered by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), Mumbai, and the other by the Economic Offences Wing, Taloja. The court recorded that in both predicate cases, the accused had already been discharged for want of evidence.
Relying on a Supreme Court ruling, the special court reiterated that prosecution under Sections 3 and 4 of the PMLA could be sustained only if “proceeds of crime” arising from a scheduled offence are established. These sections deal with the offence of concealing and possessing proceeds of crime and projecting those as untainted property, and its punishment.
The ED had attached properties allegedly acquired from proceeds of crime; however, those attachments were subsequently set aside by the Appellate Tribunal in New Delhi. The tribunal's orders were not challenged by the prosecution, the court noted, adding that no property currently remained under attachment in the case.
Bhujbal's lawyers, Sajal Yadav and Sudarshan Khawase, argued that since the accused had already been discharged in the ACB case in 2021, the ED's prosecution could not continue in light of settled Supreme Court precedent.
With this ruling, only one ACB case relating to a Mumbai University library project is pending against Bhujbal.
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Source: EconomicTimes
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