Mumbai: A special court constituted to try cases related to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) extended the custody of former revenue minister Eknath Khadse’s son-in-law Girish Chaudhari with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday. ED, which had arrested Chaudhari in a money laundering case on July 7, will have Chaudhari’s custody till July 19.
Chaudhari was arrested in a case where a plot of land which, belonged to the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) at Bhosari in Pune, was usurped causing a loss of Rs 61.26 crore to the state’s exchequer.
ED claims that Khadse gave directions to officials to acquire the land when he was not in charge of MIDC. Within 15 days, the land was purchased by his kin - Chaudhari and his mother-in-law and Khadse’s wife Mandakini, for Rs 3.75 crores when the market price of the land as per government records was Rs 31 crores in 2016 when the deal took place.
While seeking his custody on last Monday, ED had told the court that Chaudhari had dealt with a person named Om Prakash, chief director of Benchmark Buildcon, the company he claims given Rs 2 crores to purchase the land. ED said, however, that its probe revealed that no such person held that designation. It also informed the court that power of attorney holders who received the money from Chaudhari, and on whose behalf stamp duty was paid, were not connected with the said land. ED sought Chaudhari’s custody for analyzing his bank accounts to find any foreign debit or credit and to probe the source of funds.
