Chhagan Bhujbal’s lawyer moves fresh bail application

Mumbai: NCP leader and former state deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal’s lawyer on Thursday moved a fresh bail application before the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court, contending that it was over a year since the prosecution complaint had been filed in the case and the applicant was still languishing in custody for no reason.

Advocate Shalabh Saxena, who filed the bail plea on behalf of Bhujbal, said that special PMLA court judge A.N. Siriskar had asked the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to file its reply on the application following which he served a copy of the bail to the investigating agency.

According to the petitioner, Bhujbal was in judicial custody since March 17, 2016 and had not been called for any investigation since his arrest which showed that his custody was not required. The plea stated that ED had already filed a prosecution complaint (charge sheet) in the case running into more than 10,000 pages almost a year ago i.e. on April 27, 2016, which showed that the probe too was over. The application further stated that since the probe was over, there was no possibility of tampering with records or evidence and hence, there was no need to keep Bhujbal in custody any further. The plea pointed out that the other 31 accused in the case had already been granted bail.

Bhujbal contended that he was in the US when ED arrested his nephew Sameer Bhujbal yet he did not change his schedule and returned to India as per plan and appeared before the ED on first summons without any attempt to evade investigation. This showed that there was no likelihood of him absconding or evading trial. The application claimed that there was nothing on record to show that any person including co-accused K.S. Chamankar or any other beneficiary of any PWD contract or anyone else had paid money directly or indirectly to Chhagan Bhujbal.