An appellate tribunal in Delhi has set aside the Enforcement Directorate‘s attachment of properties worth Rs 179 crore related to NCP leader Praful Patel, his wife Varsha and their company, holding that it was a case of “double attachment going against the principles of law”.
The appellate tribunal under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act also held in its order earlier this week that the FIRs on which the ED registered its money-laundering case never named Patel or his wife as accused.
Patel is a Rajya Sabha member of the Ajit Pawar-led NCP. He is representing the party within the NDA as the alliance is discussing government formation after winning the Lok Sabha elections.
The ED in 2022 provisionally attached seven apartments in Ceejay House in South Mumbai owned by the Patels and their company, Millennium Developers, in connection with its probe into a money-laundering case against Iqbal Memon, an erstwhile close aide of gangster Dawood Ibrahim.
According to the agency, Mirchi’s wife, Hazra Memon, had acquired these assets using “proceeds of crime”. ED’s adjudicating authority confirmed the attachment, following which the Patels and Millennium Developers went into appeal.
The appellate tribunal, while quashing the Adjudication Authority’s order, said the properties were not involved in money laundering and that 14,000 sq feet that Hazra Memon owned in Ceejay House had already been attached. Therefore, it said, this was a case of double attachment.
Millennium Developers had used the floor space index of an adjoining plot while redeveloping Ceejay House, according to the ED. The tribunal held that FSI violation was not a subject matter of ED’s money laundering case.
