ED probes Indiabulls donation to Bhujbal’s welfare foundation

The probe is part of the ongoing multi-crore money-laundering case against senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and former Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra Chhagan Bhujbal. 

ED sources told Millennium Post that the agency is looking into the “dubious” transactions between the Bhujbal Foundation and Indiabulls that also include donations of Rs 2.45 crore made by Indiabulls in 2010. 

“Bhujbal has already confirmed that his Welfare Foundation had received Rs 1.45 crore in 2009 and Rs 1 crore in 2010 from Indiabulls. However, he justified the donations by saying that he had spent the entire amount received from the corporate house for a festival in Nashik. Therefore, It will be wrong to link the Indiabulls donations to contracts allotted to it in the Nashik region,” said an ED official.

Speaking on fresh investigation into the case, the official said: “The ED’s investigation is based on the Maharashtra Anti-Corruption Bureau’s (ACB) charge-sheet, which claims Bhujbal was instrumental in the allotment of a plot to Indiabulls. However, the ACB did not make Indiabulls an accused in the charge-sheet.”

He added: “To establish the quid pro quo between Bhujbal and Indiabulls, the agency has expanded the scope of its probe. We are looking into all possibilities through which kickbacks could have been paid in this case. Specifically, benami transactions and flats gifted by Indiabulls to Bhujbal or his family members are under the scanner.”

The ACB had registered the case under the Prevention of Corruption Act and sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), after investigation showed that in lieu of allotment of the land, a trust floated by the Bhujbal family received kickbacks of Rs 2.5 crore from Indiabulls. 

The ACB charge-sheet alleged that the tendering process was rigged to favour a particular developer, who was then leased a portion of the land for 99 years at the rate of Re 1 per square metre in lieu of constructing the library.

ACB sources confirmed that legally it was not possible for the government to allot the land to the developer on a nominal lease rent of Re 1 for 99 years. “However, Bhujbal and PWD officials prepared a report and placed it before the infrastructure committee by using forged documents,” said the ACB official. 

“The accused persons named in the complaint include Chhagan Bhujbal, Samir Bhujbal, Pankaj Bhujbal, corporate houses such as DB Realty, Balwa group of companies, Neelkamal Realtors and Builders Private Limited, Neelkamal central apartment LLP and Kakade Infrastructure. Others named in the complaint are – Vinod Goenka, Asif Balwa, Sanjay Kakade and others,” the agency said in a statement. 

Based on the ACB’s FIRs, the ED had filed two FIRs against Bhujbal, his son and nephew and others under provisions of the PMLA to probe the Maharashtra Sadan scam and the Kalina land grabbing case. 

In March, the ED had arrested Bhujbal, after questioning him for over nine hours in an investigation into government contracts that he had awarded as public works minister during the erstwhile Congress-NCP regime in Maharashtra. The agency claims that Bhujbal caused a loss of Rs 870 crore to the exchequer.