INDIA. Mumbai: The adjudicating authority under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002 (PMLA) has confirmed the attachment of units at Ceejay House, located at Worli in south Mumbai and owned by NCP leader Praful Patel and his family, an officer from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said on Wednesday.
Patel will have to vacate four floors (12th to 15th floors) of Ceejay House following the decision of the PMLA’s adjudicating authority. In July 2022, a provisional attachment was carried out in a money laundering case involving a late smuggler and gangster, Iqbal Mirchi.
The building was constructed by Patel’s firm, Millennium Developers Private Limited, in 2006-07. The building was stated to have been built on a plot where Mirchi also had some properties. Instead of the land, Millennium Developers transferred the 3rd and 4th floors to Mirchi’s wife, Hazra Iqbal, in 2007.
When the ED learned that Mirchi acquired the land through Havala transactions, the 3rd and 4th floors of the building were attached by the ED in 2019 in connection with the money laundering case registered against Mirchi and others.
The ED questioned Patel in October 2019. At that time, Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawn, the promoters of DHFL, were arrested. Dheeraj Wadhawan was later granted bail. Following the controversy, Patel stated in a press conference that all property transactions at Ceejay House were legal.
The ED, on the other hand, says that Mirchi had a beneficial interest in the land where the Ceejay House is, which he got through Havala transactions.
Mirchi’s wife and sons have been declared fugitive economic offenders by a PMLA court since they failed to appear in the case. ED has so far attached assets worth over Rs. 800 crores linked to Mirchi in India and abroad. Five people were arrested in 2020, and the matter is pending before the special PMLA court in Mumbai. Mirchi, a key member of the Dawood Ibrahim gang, died in London in 2013.
Patel served as the Civil Aviation Minister under the UPA government. He is a close confidante of NCP Chief Sharad Pawar. In the last year, NCP leaders Anil Deshmukh, Nawab Malik, and Hasan Mushriff have come under the ED’s scanner, and now Patel is the fourth leader to face its action.
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