Sanjay Raut Arrested: Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) at 12 pm during the intervening night of Sunday and Monday on charges of money laundering.

This action was taken by the ED after an interrogation of six and a half hours. Sanjay Raut is an accused in the Patra Chawl scam of Maharashtra. After Sanjay Raut’s arrest, his brother Sunil Raut said that he was wrongly arrested.

“We have not been given any official documents regarding the arrest,” he alleged.

According to ED sources, Rs 11.5 lakh in cash was recovered from Raut’s house. Raut could not give the account of this money, after which the ED confiscated it. Sanjay Raut’s brother Sunil said that he will be produced in PMLA court at 11.30 am on Monday. The ED team may seek custody for interrogation.

Along with this, a case has been registered against Raut in Mumbai’s Vakola police station in an alleged audio case. This FIR was done by Swapna Patekar, a witness in the Patra Chawl case. Offensive words were used in the audio.

Sanjay Raut’s assets worth Rs 11 crores have been confiscated

The case pertains to Patra Chawl in Goregaon area of ​​Mumbai, which is a plot of Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority. There is an allegation of being a scam of about 1034 crores. In this case, assets worth Rs 9 crore of Praveen Raut and Rs 2 crore of Sanjay Raut’s wife Varsha have been confiscated.

The PMC Bank scam that surfaced in Maharashtra in 2020 was being investigated, when the name of Praveen Raut’s construction company came to the fore. It was then learned that a loan of Rs 55 lakh was given to Sanjay Raut’s wife Varsha Raut from the bank account of the builder’s wife. It is alleged that Sanjay Raut had bought a flat in Dadar with this money.

What is Patra Chal scam?

In the Goregaon suburb of Mumbai, more than 500 families lived in the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) on 47 acres of land by making tin-pattled chawls (kholis).

In 2007, a plan was made to construct a flat on this plot and give it to the families already living there and transfer the rest of the flat to MHADA and the company that developed it.

The work of building the flat on the plot was given to Guru Ashish Construction Company. As per the agreement with this company, a total of 3,000 flats were to be built on the plot. Of these, 672 flats were to be given to the families already living in the chawls.

The construction company had no right to sell the plot. It is alleged that the land was sold in violation of the agreement to nine different builders for Rs 1,034 crore and not a single flat was built. The directors of the company transferred some of the money received from the sale of the plot to their close ones.

Meanwhile, Rs 55 lakh was transferred from the account of Madhuri Raut, wife of Praveen Raut, a director of Guru Ashish Construction Company, to the account of Varsha Raut, wife of Sanjay Raut.

This came to light during the PMC Bank scam in Maharashtra in 2020. Since then, ED has been interrogating Sanjay Raut and his wife Varsha apart from Praveen Raut and Madhuri Raut. In April, the agency attached properties worth around Rs 11.15 crore belonging to Varsha and two of his associates.