Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate attached properties worth Rs 5.73 crore of former minister and Nationalist Congress Party leader Eknath Khadse. Khadse's properties in Jalgaon and Lonawala were seized in connection with the alleged Pune government land deal case in 2016.
Earlier in July, Girish Chaudhary, Khadse's son-in-law was arrested by the ED after 13 hour-long interrogation. The case was registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The central agency was reportedly probing Khadse's connection with the case.
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Khadse, the 68-year-old revenue minister in the erstwhile Devendra Fadnavis government was accused of illegally buying three acres of land in Pune's Bhosari area in 2016. The land belonged to the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC). The plot was registered in Chaudhary and his wife's names.
The entanglement in the case led to his resignation. He switched sides from the Bharatiya Janata Party to join the NCP, as per reports.
During interrogation by the ED, earlier in 2021, Khadse claimed innocence and had said that the state Anti-Corruption Bureau, Income Tax Department had given him a clean chit in the matter, reports said.
The case surfaced after Hemant Gawande, a Pune-based businessman, filed a complaint at Bund Garden police station in the city in 2016. Gawande alleged Khande misused his power as a minister and purchased a land plot owned by the MIDC in the Bhosari area in his relatives' name for Rs 3.75 crore instead of the market price of Rs 40 crore, as per reports.
