ED files prosecution complaint against Anil Deshmukh’s aides

The Enforcement Directorate on Monday filed a prosecution complaint against former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh’s personal secretary Sanjeev Palande and personal assistant Kundan Shinde in connection with charges of money laundering against the politician for allegedly taking a bribe of up to Rs 100 crore.

The ED had arrested Palande and Shinde on July 1. It had then claimed that suspended Assistant Police Inspector Sachin Waze collected Rs 4.7 crore from bar owners between December 2020 and February 2021 on the instructions of Deshmukh. According to ED, Waze gave the money to Shinde and subsequently a part of this money was routed to a charitable trust in Nagpur through four shell companies in Delhi.

The probe agency had then said that both Shinde and Palande were directly involved in collecting and laundering money on behalf of Deshmukh.

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Deshmukh has so far not appeared before the ED for questioning and has claimed that the central agency’s probe is not fair and is a “brute abuse of power”.

The bail pleas of the two arrested men are pending, stating that the case is one of “political vendetta” and Waze’s statement cannot be relied upon.