ED SUMMONS VARSHA RAUT OVER Rs 1.5 CR BANK TRANSACTIONS

Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned Varsh Raut, the wife Shiv Sena Member of Parliament Sanjay Raut, for questioning regarding banking transactions of Rs1.6 crore and another like amount from her account. She will appear before the central enforcement agency on Friday. 

The ED has already put paid to the Shiv Sena MP’s bail plea before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Mumbai. The court extended Raut’s custody until August 08, after being informed about properties he purchased via cash transactions of more than Rs3 crore. “The ED is aware of the identity of the person who transferred the funds into Varsha Raut’s account and intends to question her regarding the bank account from which the transactions were made. It is unlikely that she will be arrested since the ED is just seeking to cross-check her statements against those that Raut has made while in custody. Raut is believed to have been operating the bank account in his wife’s name,” a person familiar with the case said. Raut’s brother Sunil Raut vociferously denied any links between the MP and Pravin Raut—the director of Guru Ashish Construction Ltd who was arrested in the same case in 2020—immediately after the Sena spokesperson was arrested after midnight on Monday following more than 10 hours of questioning on Sunday. He had stated that merely sharing a surname did not mean any nexus between Sanjay and Pravin Raut.

However, as soon as his brother’s custody was extended, Sunil Rau recanted, and said that Pravin Raut enjoyed close relations with his brother. “Sanjay Raut was surprisingly silent all through the court proceedings on Monday, where he was first produced after his arrest. However, he did he raised the issue of a lack of ventilation in the facility (air-conditioned conference room) in which he was housed at the ED office while citing a heart condition,” a person close to the development said.