Bombay, June 26
The Execution Directorate summoned former Maharashtra Interior Minister Anil Deshmukh on Saturday for questioning in a money laundering case linked to rupee 100 crore bribery charges, officials said. .
They said the 71-year-old NCP politician was asked to give evidence to the investigator handling the case at the Enforcement Branch (ED) office in the Ballard Estate area here.
The summons was issued under the Money Laundering Prevention Act (PMLA) and states he must file by 11 a.m., they said.
The central agency arrested its personal secretary Sanjeev Palande and personal assistant Kundan Shinde on Friday evening after raiding them and Deshmukh in Mumbai and Nagpur.
The two were taken to the emergency room following the searches.
They will be brought before a special PMLA court in Mumbai on Saturday, where the ED will request their pre-trial detention for interrogation in custody, officials said.
The ED case against Deshmukh and others was established after the CBI first conducted a preliminary investigation followed by a regular case filed by order of the Bombay High Court.
The court had asked the agency to look into allegations of corruption brought against Deshmukh by former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh.
Deshmukh, who resigned from his post in April following the allegations, denied any wrongdoing.
Singh was kicked out of the post after the role of Deputy Police Inspector Sachin Waze, who has since been dismissed, surfaced during an investigation into an explosives-laden SUV that was found parked near the house of industrialist Mukesh Ambani in Mumbai.
In his letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray after being dismissed from his post as police commissioner, Singh alleged that Deshmukh asked Waze to extort more than 100 crore rupees a month from bars and restaurants in Mumbai.
Deshmukh, a leader of the NCP, was the Home Secretary in the Maha Vikas Aghadi government headed by Thackeray.
The CBI convicted Deshmukh and others under Articles of the Criminal Code of India (IPC) relating to criminal association and the Prevention of Corruption Act for “attempting to obtain an improper advantage for the exercise inappropriate and dishonest public duty ”.
PTI
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