Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut’s woes continued as a special PMLA court extended his judicial custody till September 19 in connection with the Patra Chawl land scam. On the morning of July 31, the ED raided the Bhandup residence of Raut, grilled him for several hours, took him to its zonal office in south Mumbai’s Ballard Estate for further questioning and arrested him a day later. Alleging that it was a “false case”, he vowed to not desert the Shiv Sena faction led by former Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray.
What is the Patra Chawl land scam?
In 2008, the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) gave the contract of redeveloping Patra Chawl located in Mumbai to Guru Ashish Construction Private Limited (GACPL), a subsidiary of real estate firm Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL). A tripartite agreement was signed between GACPL, MHADA and the tenants’ society to provide flats to the people living in 672 houses, develop flats for MHADA and sell the remaining area to private builders. However, the ED claimed that GACPL neither constructed the flats for the tenants as well as MHADA.
Instead, it sold the floor space index to 9 private developers for about Rs.901.79 crore. Moreover, the firm also collected Rs.138 crore as the booking amount for its housing project called Meadows. As per the central agency, Pravin Raut- who was a director of GACPL received approximately Rs.100 crore from HDIL and diverted it to accounts of his close associates, family members and business entities. The ED alleged that Rs.83 lakh which was a part of the “proceeds of crime” was transferred to Sanjay Raut’s wife Varsha who purportedly used this money to buy a flat in Dadar.
Moreover, Varsha Raut and Swapna Patkar purchased at least 8 plots of land at the Kihim beach at Alibaug in Maharashtra. While Pravin Raut was arrested in this case in February, the ED attached the aforesaid immovable properties worth Rs.11.15 crore on April 5. On July 1, the Shiv Sena MP was questioned by the central agency pertaining to this case for over 10 hours.
