[BREAKING] Mumbai court remands Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut to judicial custody till August 22 in money laundering case

A Mumbai court on Monday remanded Shiv Sena Member of Parliament (MP) Sanjay Raut to judicial custody till August 22 in a money laundering case.

A Special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) Court passed the order after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said that it did not seek additional custody.

Judge MG Deshpande took note of medical papers submitted, indicating heart disease, while allowing home-cooked food for the MP along with his medicines while in judicial custody.

"ED has prayed to remand the accused (Sanjay Raut) to judicial custody. Accordingly, the accused is remanded to judicial custody till August 22", the Court said.

The Court also noted that the applications for home-cooked food and medications which had been permitted during his custody with the ED can be continued while he was in judicial custody.

Raut was arrested by the central agency on July 31 in connection with a money laundering case linked to the redevelopment of a chawl project in a northern suburb of Mumbai and related transactions involving his wife and ‘associates’.

The ED is investigating alleged violation of PMLA in a case pertaining to the irregularities in the redevelopment of Patra Chawl by Guru Ashish Construction Pvt Ltd a subsidiary of HDIL.

The agency had earlier arrested Pravin Raut, a close associate of Sanjay Raut and attached properties belonging to the Shiv Sena leader’s wife Varsha Raut.

In April, the ED provisionally attached assets worth over ₹11.15 crore of Raut’s wife Varsha Raut and two of his associates as part of this investigation.

The attached properties comprise land held by Pravin M Raut, Sanjay Raut’s aide and a former director of Guru Ashish Construction Pvt Ltd, at Palghar, Saphale (town in Palghar) and Padgha (in Thane district).

Raut was summoned for questioning in the re-development of a Mumbai ‘chawl’ and related transactions involving his wife and ‘associates’.

ED had earlier interrogated Raut for over 10 hours on July 1 before being summoned again on July 20.

Raut, who is a member of Rajya Sabha, did not answer the summons citing the ongoing session of Parliament. Thereafter a search and seizure operation was conducted at Raut's Bhandup residence on Sunday.

After questioning the members of his household for over nine hours, the investigators took the MP to the agency's office at Ballard Pier, Mumbai later in the afternoon on Sunday.

Raut was arrested around midnight.

The special court had passed an order on August 1 granting 4-day custody to ED which was extended till today.

In their application for judicial custody, the ED stated that since the proceeds of crime in the present case involved a substantial amount tracing back to the year 2009-2014, investigation was still in progress.

Raut being an influential person may tamper with evidence and in any case there were allegations of threatening witnesses made against him, the agency claimed while seeking his judicial custody.

[Read our live coverage of the hearing below]