Earlier this week, a Mumbai court quashed an Enforcement Directorate (ED) order that sought to attach properties worth over ₹180 crore belonging to NCP leader Praful Patel. This was in connection with a money laundering case related to the alleged illegal assets of the late Iqbal Mirchi, a close associate of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

The Times of India reported that an Appellate Tribunal dealing with the Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators Act (SAFEMA) passed the order on June 3.

The tribunal deemed the ED's action against NCP leader Praful Patel "illegal," according to The Times of India. The tribunal stated that the properties, including at least seven flats in Mumbai's Ceejay House owned by Patel, his wife Varsha, and their company Millennium Developers, were not involved in money laundering or connected to Iqbal Mirchi.

Furthermore, the tribunal noted that the properties belonging to Mirchi's wife Hazra Memon and her two sons in Ceejay House were attached separately. Therefore, a double attachment of another property belonging to the Patels was "not required."

According to ED, Patel’s Millennium Developers Pvt Ltd constructed a building called Ceejay House in Mumbai in 2006-07. The ED claims that the third and fourth floors, measuring around 14,000 square feet, were transferred to Iqbal Mirchi’s wife, Hazra Iqbal Memon. The properties were allegedly acquired from Mirchi's widow through "illegal transactions" involving the proceeds of crime, including money laundering, drug trafficking, and extortion.

Mirchi, an accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, died in 2013. Patel, however, maintained that the deal was a redevelopment project involving property partly owned by his family and partly by others, including Hazra Memon.

Meanwhile, in March this year, the CBI closed a corruption case involving Patel, shortly after he joined the rival BJP-led NDA following a split in the NCP. The probe agency stated there was no "evidence of any wrongdoing" by Patel, an Ajit Pawar loyalist, in the alleged irregularities related to the leasing of aircraft by the National Aviation Corporation of India Ltd. (NACIL), formed after the merger of Air India and Indian Airlines.

Image source: Hindustan Times