Fake passbooks found in MET

Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials have recovered fake bank passbooks from Sameer Bhujbal’s Mumbai Educational Trust (MET) office, a source said. The ED has also discovered, from the passbooks, that some money had been sent to Indonesia. Sameer, the ED sources said, failed to provide a satisfactory explanation about the passbooks. Officials are likely to interrogate the accountant who was working with the politician.

The ED continues to give nightmares to NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal and his family. The agency searched multiple premises in Mumbai in connection with the money-laundering probe more than two times. In the search, MET office sources said, officials found 69 fake bank passbooks, which neither Sameer nor Chhagan Bhujbal could explain.

Sources also added that Chhagan Bhujbal has been maintaining that only Sameer has knowledge of what had been transpiring and the latter had not kept him in the loop about everything. His one reply to every question that has come his way has been “Ask Sameer. He knows everything and I don’t know anything about the same”.

In the month of February, ED officials raided more than nine office and residential premises belonging to Chhagan Bhujbal and his family members across Mumbai. Officials discovered some documents and evidence after which they arrested Sameer and, later, Chhagan Bhujbal. Officials are likely to call chartered accountants for interrogation.

On March 17, a special court for Prevention of Money Laundering Act cases remanded Chhagan Bhujbal to judicial custody till March 31. The ED had sought seven days’ custody for Chhagan Bhujbal because two days of his custody had not helped them to get information. But court rejected the investigative agency’s application on the ground that it needed to give independent evidence, which it had not produced. At the same time, the court extended Sameer’s custody till March 21.