On Monday, 4 January 2021, Varsha Raut, wife of Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut reached Enforcement Directorate (ED) office in Mumbai, in connection to the over ₹4,300-crore PMC Bank money-laundering case questioning.
She was earlier summoned by ED to appear before it on 5 January after she asked for an adjournment of the previous summons and sought a fresh date. Raut had skipped the earlier summons reportedly on health grounds.
The ED wants to question Varsha Raut with regard to her business dealings linked to at least three partnership firms with which she and the wife of another accused in the case, Pravin Raut, allegedly have connections.
Both Pravin Raut and his wife Madhuri have been questioned by the ED in the past and their statements have been recorded, the sources told PTI.
ED's Actions On 1st January 2021:
On 1 January, the ED said it has attached assets worth ₹72 crore of a Maharashtra-based man Pravin Raut, who "siphoned off" ₹95 crore worth of funds from the scam-hit bank in the garb of loan, out of which he paid ₹1.6 crore to his wife, Madhuri Raut, who subsequently transferred ₹55 lakh in two tranches to Varsha Raut, wife of Sanjay Raut, as an "interest-free loan."
At a press conference in Mumbai earlier, Sanjay Raut denied any wrongdoing on his wife's part and said they have been in correspondence with the agency in connection with the case for about a month and a half.
He had earlier said details regarding the ₹55-lakh loan transaction have already been submitted to the ED.
["We are middle-class people. My wife had taken a loan from a friend 10 years ago to purchase a house. Details have been given to the Income-Tax (department) and also mentioned in my Raya Sabha affidavit. The ED woke up to this deal after 10 years," the Sena leader told the press conference.
Sanjay Raut had alleged that central agencies were being used to "destabilise" the Uddhav Thackeray-led government in Maharashtra.]
ED sources countered the claim of seeking response in a decade-old transaction, saying the alleged irregularities in the bank only surfaced last year and the HDIL promoters and others were subsequently arrested in the case.
They said a probe agency acts as and when any evidence in a criminal case surfaces, adding that all those involved with the affairs of the bank are being questioned and no one is being singled out.
The ED had filed a PMLA case to probe the alleged loan fraud in the Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank in October last year against the Housing Development Infrastructure Limited (HDIL), its promoter Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan, his son Sarang Wadhawan, its former chairman Waryam Singh and ex-managing director Joy Thomas.
Former BJP leader Eknath Khadse, who has recently joined Sharad Pawar's NCP, has also been summoned by the ED for questioning in Mumbai on Wednesday in connection with a money-laundering case linked to a land deal in Pune's Bhosri area.
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