MUMBAI: Former Maharashtra Home Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Anil Deshmukh who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) late on Monday night after over 12 hours of questioning in the money laundering case has been remanded to ED custody for four days till November 6 by a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court.

The ED sought Deshmukh's custody for 14 days arguing that it needed to carry out further investigation into the trail of money earned through illegitimate means over a dozen shell companies controlled by the former minister's family member and a similar number of companies managed by his close associates which were used to move the bribe money to Deshmukh's owned institution.

Appearing for ED, additional solicitor general Anil Singh told the court that there were 3 public interest litigations (PILs) filed before the Bombay HC levelling allegations of corruption primarily against Anil Deshmukh and the agency had strong evidence to link ill-gotten wealth earned by Deshmukh that has been moved through the shell companies.

Vikram Chaudhri and advocate Aniket Nikam representing Deshmukh submitted that ED had no locus to investigate and based on the PILs the Bombay High Court had directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the case and no one had asked the ED to conduct its own investigation. "No one asked you to investigate, you came on your own," Vikram Chaudhary said. 

The defence further said that the ED started its investigation against Deshmukh after the CBI filed its FIR against the NCP leader on April 21 based on the malicious statement of dismissed police officer Sachin Waze who is behind bars in the bomb scare outside industrialist Mukesh Ambani's south Mumbai house.

The CBI had booked Deshmukh in a corruption case on allegations made by former Mumbai Police commissioner Param Bir Singh that Deshmukh had asked Waze to extort Rs 100 crore from bars and restaurants in Mumbai every month on his behalf. 

The ED investigation shows that while he was the minister Deshmukh was given Rs 4.70 crore by Waze who had collected it as bribes from various bars and restaurants in Mumbai which was then laundered to Deshmukh's family-controlled Nagpur based Shri educational trust called Sai Shikshan Sanstha.

Deshmukh's lawyers said that Singh the person who has made all the allegations were missing and the agency has based the entire case on his public statement. After listening to both sides special PMLA judge P B Jadhav remanded Deshmukh four days custody to ED.