The Enforcement Directorate has issued a lookout notice against former Maharashtra minister Anil Deshmukh in an alleged money laundering case, reported The Indian Express on Monday.
A lookout notice is usually issued to prevent a person from leaving the country and remains valid up to a year or till the agency cancels or renews it. Officials at ports, road borders and airports are now authorised to detain Deshmukh if he tries to get out of India, according to India Today.
The Enforcement Directorate is investigating Deshmukh’s role in the alleged money laundering case based on a First Information Report filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
The CBI is conducting an investigation on Bombay High Court’s directions into allegations that Deshmukh coerced police officers to extort money on his behalf from the owners of bars and restaurants in Mumbai. Former Mumbai Police chief Param Bir Singh had levelled the allegations of extortion in March.
Singh had alleged that dismissed police officer Sachin Vaze told him that Deshmukh had asked him to collect Rs 100 crore every month through illegal channels.
The Enforcement Directorate has claimed that more than Rs 4 crore collected from bar owners between December and February was routed to Deshmukh’s charitable trust in Nagpur through four shell companies in Delhi.
The central agency has so far arrested Deshmukh’s private secretary Sanjeev Palande and private assistant Kundan Shinde in connection with the case.
The Enforcement Directorate has issued five summons to Deshmukh to appear before him. But the Nationalist Congress Party leader has not appeared before it yet.
The last summons was issued by the Enforcement Directorate on August 18, a day after the Supreme Court refused to provide the former minister interim protection from coercive action by the central agency. The court, however, had allowed Deshmukh to seek other remedies available to him under the Criminal Procedure Code.
Following that, Deshmukh moved the Bombay High Court on September 2 seeking to quash the summons against him issued by the Enforcement Directorate. The matter was listed before Justice Revati Mohite Dere but she recused herself from the hearing without giving any reason.
In his petition before the Bombay High Court, Deshmukh has also asked it to transfer the inquiry into the alleged money laundering to a special investigation team. The plea said that the special investigation team should comprise Enforcement Directorate officials not working at the agency’s Mumbai zone office.
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