Varsha Raut, the wife of Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut, again skipped questioning by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday in the over Rs 4,300-crore PMC Bank money-laundering case, official sources said.
They said she has asked for an adjournment of the latest summons and sought a fresh date of January 5 for deposing before the central agency in Mumbai.
The ED has agreed to the request and asked her to bring some personal and financial documents so that her statement can be recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the sources said.
This was the third summons issued to Varsha Raut after she skipped two earlier ones reportedly on health grounds.
The ED wants to question Varsha Raut with regard to her business dealings linked to at least three partnership firms with which she and the wife of another accused in the case, Pravin Raut, allegedly have connections.
Both Pravin Raut and his wife Madhuri have been questioned by the ED in the past and their statements have been recorded, the sources said.
Pravin Raut was earlier arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police in the case and it is alleged that he misappropriated PMC Bank funds to the tune of Rs 90 crore.
A decade-old transaction of about Rs 55 lakh allegedly between Madhuri Raut and Varsha Raut is also under the scanner of the agency.
The ED suspects this to be the "proceeds of crime" of the PMC Bank fraud and hence, wants to question Varsha Raut, the sources said.
At a press conference in Mumbai on Monday, Sanjay Raut denied any wrongdoing on his wife's part and said they have been in correspondence with the agency in connection with the case for about a month and a half.
Sanjay Raut (59) is a Rajya Sabha MP and also the spokesperson of the Sena, which is in power in Maharashtra and is a former ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
He said details regarding the Rs 55-lakh loan transaction have already been submitted to the ED.
"We are middle-class people. My wife had taken a loan from a friend 10 years ago to purchase a house. Details have been given to the Income-Tax (department) and also mentioned in my Raya Sabha affidavit. The ED woke up to this deal after 10 years," the Sena leader told the press conference.
ED sources countered the claim of seeking response in a decade-old transaction, saying the alleged irregularities in the bank only surfaced last year and the HDIL promoters and others were subsequently arrested in the case.
They said a probe agency acts as and when any evidence in a criminal case surfaces, adding that all those involved with the affairs of the bank are being questioned and no one is being singled out.
Sanjay Raut had alleged that central agencies were being used to "destabilise" the Uddhav Thackeray-led government in Maharashtra.
The ED had filed a PMLA case to probe the alleged loan fraud in the Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank in October last year against the Housing Development Infrastructure Limited (HDIL), its promoter Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan, his son Sarang Wadhawan, its former chairman Waryam Singh and ex-managing director Joy Thomas.
It took cognisance of a Mumbai Police EOW FIR against them that charged them for causing "wrongful loss, prima facie to the tune of Rs 4,355 crore, to the PMC Bank and corresponding gains to themselves".
The Shiv Sena, which is ruling Maharashtra as part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government along with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress, had earlier alleged that central probe agencies were targeting its leaders unfairly.
Former BJP leader Eknath Khadse, who has recently joined Sharad Pawar's NCP, has also been summoned by the ED for questioning in Mumbai on Wednesday in connection with a money-laundering case linked to a land deal in Pune's Bhosri area.
