The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned Shiv Sena MP from Yavatmal-Washim, Bhavana Gawali, for her questioning in the Mahila Utkarsha Pratishthan money laundering case. The ED has directed her to appear at the South Mumbai office of the agency on October 4.
The summon was issued hours after the ED arrested her close aide Saeed Khan during the probe. Subsequently, ED secured his police remand till October 1 to question his alleged involvement in the scam.
Saeed Khan is accused of converting the trust Mahila Utkarsha Pratishthan into a company in 2019. Bhavana Gawali and her mother Shalinitai Gawali were members of this trust.
Saeed Khan became the director of this company along with Shalinitai Gawali. ED has accused that financial irregularities were committed on the name of Mahila Utkarsha Pratishthan and booked Saeed Khan for money laundering and embezzlement worth Rs 17 crore.
Enforcement Directorate suspects the trust was converted into a company to launder unaccounted money. It also suspects that forgery was committed to change the trust into a company. The Shiv Sena MP and her associate have been facing allegations of misuse and appropriation of loans worth Rs 43.35 crores awarded by the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC).
According to media reports, Mahila Utkarsha Pratishthan as well as other concerns of the MP like Balaji Sahkari Particle Board Karkhana Limited and Bhavana Agro Products & Services Ltd are under scanner for alleged money laundering and duping banks on the name of loans.
Notably, the first official complaint against the MP and her family was made by a former Shiv Sena leader Harish Chandra Sarda. He had filed a petition before the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court for an inquiry by the CBI and ED into misappropriation of funds at Balaji Sahkari Particle Board Karkhana Limited. Harish Sharda had claimed that Pundlikrao Gawali, father of Bhavana Gawali was made patron of this cooperative factory Balaji Sahkari Particle Board Karkhana Limited when it was opened in 1998.
Sarda alleged that Pundlikrao Gawali transferred 14.90 hectares of factory land to Mahila Utkarsha Pratishthan 2001 in a fraudulent manner. He also made other serious charges of financial embezzlement against the Gawli family.
