Maharashtra Sadan scam: ACB court grants bail to Chhagan Bhujbal

A special Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) court on Wednesday granted bail to former Maharashtra minister and senior NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal and his nephew Sameer Bhujbal in the Maharashtra Sadan and Mumbai University library cases, reported Nabvbharat Times .

“They both were produced in the court and were granted bail on a surety of Rs 50,000 each,” PTI quoted Special Public Prosecutor Pradeep Gharat.

However, according to The Financial Express , Bhujbal will  continue to remain in judicial custody in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case against him.

The case is likely to come up for hearing on 22 July.

Bhujbal was arrested on 14 March on charges of money laundering under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) after the agency could establish the chain how the bogus deals and illicit funds funneled into the Bhujbal empire, reported Firstpost.

The Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) prescribes rigorous imprisonment from three years to seven years in case an individual is found guilty.

Both NCP leaders will face action as per the provisions of the PMLA if they are convicted by a court of law, a senior ED official told Firstpost on condition of anonymity.

The ACB had chargesheeted 17 people, including the Bhujbals in February this year. It had filed a 20,000-page charge sheetconsisting of statements of over 60 witnesses.

According to the ACB, the case was entirely based on documentary evidence, such as fund transfer and bank transactions.

In the construction of Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi, contractors had “earned 80 percent profit,“while as per the government circular such contractors were entitled to “only 20 per cent gain”, ACB officials alleged.

They said that the books of accounts were “fudged” to show that the profit earned was only one percent. Officials had said that for construction of Maharashtra Sadan, Chamankar Associates, the contractor firm, had allegedly transferred money to Niche Infrastructure and other companies in which Pankaj and Sameer were the directors.

The chargesheet said that most of the companies floated by the Bhujbals were in the name of employees and were used for siphoning off funds. Niche was earlier owned by some employees of Maharashtra Educational Trust, in which the Bhujbals later became directors.

The ACB officials had earlier said that the original cost estimate for Maharashtra Sadan was Rs 13.5 crore, but later it was increased to Rs 50 crore. The Bhujbals got Rs 13.5 crore in kickbacks from the Chamankars who earned a profit of about Rs 190 crore from Maharashtra Sadan and other PWD works, they alleged.

The ACB, had in June last year, registered two FIRs against Chhagan Bhujbal. The first one was related to alleged irregularities in allotment of a prime plot at Kalina in Mumbai to a developer.

The second case was in connection with alleged rampant corruption and large-scale irregularities in the construction of the new Maharashtra Sadan, the state government’s guest house in Delhi.

With inputs from PTI