Achi news desk-
Mumbai19 hours ago
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Prafulla Patel is a Rajya Sabha MP from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) from the Ajit faction.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Rajya Sabha MP Praful Patel from Ajit’s faction in Maharashtra has been given a major reprieve in the money laundering case. The Mumbai Appellate Tribunal has canceled the Enforcement Directorate (ED) order, which had demanded the seizure of Prafulla’s properties in Mumbai worth Rs 180 crore.
ED alleged that these properties were acquired through illegal transactions by Hajra Iqbal Memon, a close aide of Dawood Ibrahim and widow of drug mafia Iqbal Mirchi. Mirchi, an accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, died in 2013.
However, the court said that the ED’s case against Patel was illegal and said that these properties were not involved in money laundering or related to Iqbal Mirchi. In its order dated June 3, the court has asked ED to return the seized property of Praful Patel.
The court said that the 14,000 square feet property of Hazra Memon and his two sons in CJ House was separately attached. Therefore, Praful Patel’s other 14,000 square feet property did not require double attachment, as it was not part of the income of CJ House.
Praful Patel’s Millennium Developers Private Limited built CJ House in 2006–07.
Praful Patel’s company had erected the building
According to ED, Praful Patel’s Millennium Developers Private Limited had constructed a building called CJ House in Mumbai in 2006-07. It is alleged that there was an agreement regarding property between Patel and Mirchi in 2007.
It was said that this building was built on land where Mirchi also had some properties. In exchange for the land, Millennium Developers handed over the third and fourth floors to Hajra, Mirchi’s wife, in 2007.
When the ED discovered that Mirchi had bought the land through hawala transactions, it attached the third and fourth floors of the building in 2019 in the money laundering case registered against Mirchi. In October 2019, Praful Patel was also questioned for more than 12 hours regarding the case.
At that time DHFL promoters Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan were arrested. Dheeraj Wadhawan was later granted bail. Patel had said in a press conference that all the property transactions in CJ House were done legally.
ED had attached about 7 flats in 2022
In 2022, ED had attached at least 7 flats on the 12th and 15th floors of CJ House under the PMLA Act. Their value is said to be around Rs 180 crore. These flats were registered in the name of Prafulla’s wife Varsha and her company Millennium Developer.
In this case, Iqbal Mirchi’s wife and sons have been declared fugitives by the PMLA court. ED has also seized assets worth Rs 800 crore related to Mirchi in India and abroad including Dubai, UK.
Praful Patel was considered close to the (then undivided) NCP chief Sharad Pawar. He joined the Ajit faction’s NCP after the rebellion in July 2023. Patel has also served as the Civil Aviation Minister in the UPA government.
Praful Patel is the fourth NCP leader to come on ED’s radar. Before him, Anil Deshmukh, Nawab Malik and Hasan Mushrif had come under the scanner of ED.
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