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ACB raids Chhagan Bhujbal's office

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FIR filed against Chhagan Bhujbal in Maharashtra Sadan scam

MUMBAI: A week after booking Chhagan Bhujbal on charges of corruption and cheating in two separate cases, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Tuesday raided the residences and offices of the NCP leader and former public works minister in Mumbai, Thane, Pune and Nashik.A total of 16 properties belonging to Bhujbal, his nephew Sameer and son Pankaj were raided by 15 teams, ACB officials said. They had got a Nashik court’s permission to conduct the raids. Most of them were in Mumbai—in Mazgaon, Worli, Dadar, Shivaji Park and Santacruz. His farmhouse in Nashik was searched as well. However, the sleuths found no cash or gold ornaments, only documents, an ACB official said.The action is being viewed as a major setback not just for Bhujbal but for NCP president Sharad Pawar. Sources said such stringent action had not been expected in view of Pawar’s relations with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But a bureaucrat said that as chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who had given permission to the ACB to conduct an open inquiry against Bhujbal and two other NCP leaders, Ajit Pawar and Sunil Tatkare, was firm, there was no scope for weakening the probe.The ACB had on June 8 registered a First Information Report against Bhujbal for allotment of a prime piece of land in Kalina to a developer for construction of a library. A second criminal case was registered against him on June 11 for his alleged involvement in the Maharashtra Sadan scam. In the wake of a public interest litigation filed by Aam Aadmi Party activist Anjali Damania, the Bombay high court had asked the ACB to set up a special investigation team to probe charges of corruption against Bhujbal.Along with Bhujbal, Pankaj, Sameer, former public works department secretaries D B Deshpande and Devdutt Marathe and high-ranking engineers have been named as the accused.The ACB sleuths found on Tuesday that Bhujbal has a 2,000 sq ft flat and a Toyota car at Worli, a 600 sq ft flat in Mazgaon, a 1,200 sq ft mini-theatre in wife Meena’s name at Manek Mahal in Churchgate, three floors in the Solitaire building in Santacruz, and a six-bedroom bungalow in Lonavla worth Rs 5 crore which has imported furniture and six service quarters and is built on property spread across 2.82 acres and equipped with a helipad and a huge garden. While this bungalow is in the name of Sameer and Pankaj, the ACB found that there are other bungalows in the name of Meena (in Navi Mumbai) and Pankaj (in Nashik, worth Rs 100 crore, built on 46,500 sq ft of property, with 25 rooms, a huge swimming pool and a gym).“ACB has recovered all the documents pertaining to these properties and an assessment is in progress. The SIT had found substance in the charges of corruption against Bhujbal and his family members, therefore criminal cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Indian Penal Code have been registered,” a senior bureaucrat told TOI.Director General of Police (ACB) Praveen Dixit said, “Our team is studying the documents and will provide an update once it completes its analysis.”Though the ACB had seized several assets, including jewellery, from the house of ex-PWD official and current information commissioner Deepak Deshpande when its sleuths raided the properties of nine officials last week, only documents were found at Bhujbal’s properties. A bureaucrat said, “ACB should have raided Bhujbal’s properties at the same time that they carried out searches at the properties of PWD officers. It is possible Bhujbal may have moved his other assets.”On the charges against Bhujbal, the bureaucrat said that in the first case, it has been alleged that a prime piece of land was allotted to Indiabulls in violation of rules at a nominal price on a public-private partnership basis. During the same period, the Bhujbal Foundation received a huge donation from the firm. In the second case, Bhujbal has been accused of awarding the contract for construction of the Maharashtra Sadan in New Delhi again in violation of rules. In the deal, the government has suffered an estimated loss of Rs 786 crore, though the public accounts committee had pegged the loss at Rs 6,000 crore. In lieu of the contract, the developer, Chamankar Enterprises or its associates, transferred huge amounts to firms directly or indirectly controlled either by Bhujbal or his family members.