ED Attaches Assets Worth Rs 4.20 Crore Belonging To Former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh In Corruption Case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday (16 July) said that it has attached immovable assets worth Rs 4.20 Crore belonging to former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh and his family in a corruption case.

The assets have been attached under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Deshmukh, 72, has skipped at least three Enforcement Directorate (ED) summons for questioning, reports India TV.

His son Hrishikesh and wife were also summoned by the federal probe agency but they too refused to depose. The summons were issued in connection with the criminal case registered under the PMLA related to an alleged Rs 100 crore bribery-cum-extortion racket in the Maharashtra police establishment that led to Deshmukh's resignation in April this year.

Deshmukh (72), is facing an ED investigation on the basis of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case as the fallout of the allegations made in a letter penned by former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh, who is now the Commandant-General of Home Guards.

Singh had alleged in his letter to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray in March that Deshmukh had fixed a collection target of Rs 100 crore per month for sacked assistant police inspector Sachin Vaze, who was the then head of the Crime Intelligence Unit of the elite Crime Branch-CID of the Mumbai Police. Thereafter, Singh had approached the Supreme Court which directed him to go to Bombay High Court where the CBI was asked to conduct a preliminary enquiry.

On 26 June, the ED arrested Deshmukh's personal secretary Sanjeev Palande and personal assistant Kundan Shinde in connection with an alleged 'hafta' case. In its remand copy of the two officials of Deshmukh, the ED said that over Rs 4 crore collected from bar owners between December 2020 and February 2021 was routed to Deshmukh's charitable trust in Nagpur, through four shell companies in Delhi.