Mundhwa land deal case | Calling it an ‘elite scam’, court rejects Sheetal Tejwani’s bail plea,

Tejwani who is currently in judicial custody was first arrested by the EOW on December 3 last year as part of the probe into the FIR registered at Khadak police station on November 7. She was subsequently arrested by the Pimpri Chinchwad police in connection to the probe about stamp duty waiver in the case registered at Bavdhan police station.

The court of Additional Sessions Judge BV Wagh rejected Tejwani bail application on February 6. The copy of the court order was made available on Monday. The court has said in its order, “Though, superficially it appears that the deal entered into by the applicant did not cause wrongful loss to any individual, but actually the applicant in connivance of government authority has secured illegal order of regularisation of the protected land and thereby cause huge loss to state exchequers for her illegal enrichment. Needless to say that the scam is an elite scam. The applicant is also involved in similar nature of crime.”

The land parcel in Mundhwa which was earlier a Mahar Watan — a hereditary land grant — was in possession of the government and was leased to the Botanical Survey of India. A separate FIR has been registered in connection to Mundhwa land parcel at Bavdhan police station under the Pimpri Chinchwad police. Digvijay Patil, partner of Parth Pawar in the Amadea Enterprises LLP, has been named as an accused in both cases investigated by Pune police and Pimpri Chinchwad police.

Following the complaint filed by the office Inspector General of Registration (IGR) in connection to allegations of graft and irregularities in a multi crore land deal involving Amadea Enterprises LLP, an FIR was filed at Bavdhan police station on November 6. The FIR under provisions of cheating and criminal breach of trust was filed against Patil, Tejwani and Ravindra Taru, the now-suspended sub-registrar who registered the deal.