Mumbai: Special Court Summons Developers In Patra Chawl Money Laundering Case

Mumbai: The special MP and MLA court has issued summons to Prathamesh Developers LLP, through its partner Pravin Raut and Jitendra Mehta of Mehta Developers, for their alleged involvement in a money laundering case linked to the Patra Chawl redevelopment case. The court issued summons while taking cognisance of the supplementary chargesheet submitted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against them in August.

Noting that prima facie offence of money laundering is clearly made out, special judge Satyanarayan R Navander said, “The company and Mehta were involved in the process of generating and siphoning the proceeds of crime.”

The ED has claimed that Guruashish Construction Pvt Ltd (GACPL) through HDIL launched a project in 2010 namely Meadows at Patra Chawl. Against bookings from 458 home buyers, an amount of Rs138 crore was collected. The agency claimed that HDIL’s Sarang Wadhawan and Pravin Raut, a close associate of Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut, managed to sell the FSI (floor space index) to third party developers and collected Rs1,039.79 crore from 2010 to 2014.

Some part of the said amount was used in developing the project which remained incomplete. However, most of the funds were siphoned off to various accounts, the ED has alleged. It was further claimed that Prathmesh Developers, wherein Pravin Raut is a partner and authorised signatory, diverted proceeds of crime to acquire immovable properties in its name of Prathamesh Developers. The court also noted that Mehta, proprietor of Mehta Developer, was a close associate and confidant of Rakesh Wadhawan, promoter of GACPL since 2003.

He allegedly routed nearly Rs90 crore through the bank account of his firm to buy 125 tenements out of the total 672 to fraudulently secure the mandatory 70% tenant consent required for the approval of GACPL as new developer in the redevelopment project, the court said. The court noted that Mehta personally benefited from this arrangement by receiving three tenements registered in his name, his wife’s and mother’s names, without paying.

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