By Venkatesh Raghavan*
Mumbai: Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut, who courted arrest last night after failing to turn up at the Enforcement Directorate (ED) office despite two repeated summons, has been remanded to the nodal agency’s custody till August 4, 2022, in an alleged land scam case.
During the court proceedings, the ED initially sought eight-day custody. However, 60-year-old Raut’s lawyer cited health conditions including heart-related ailments. Papers that pertained to Raut’s heart surgery and health conditions were also furnished to the court.
Raut happens to be a frontline actor for the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena faction that is at present at loggerheads with Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led rebel faction of the Party. His detention took place on Sunday night subsequent to a day-long raid conducted by the zonal office of the ED at his residence. The ED cited that the case in question pertained to the transfer of funds that took place related to the redevelopment of a chawl in the Mumbai metropolitan region. The ED officers alleged that money had been transferred from both Raut and his wife’s accounts.
The ED had invoked the prevention of money laundering act to arrest Raut and produce him in court on Monday morning. Raut, speaking to media persons on the sidelights, said, “This is an act of political vendetta and aimed at destroying the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena by the usage of false and trumped up charges.”
While the tussle between the Uddhav-led Sena faction and Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s faction is still on the potboiler, in New Delhi today, Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi took up Raut’s detention and arrest in Parliament, citing that the Central government had misused its power by deploying a nodal investigative agency against Raut in pursuit of its political agenda.
The city police in Mumbai was on extra alert mode, with the deployment of adequate security at the hospital where Raut was taken for a check-up, earlier at his home premises and subsequently at the courtroom.
*Senior journalist
