A day after his arrest, a special court here on Saturday remanded Sadanand Kadam, considered a close associate of Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Anil Parab, in the Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody till March 15 in an alleged money laundering case pertaining to a resort in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district.
In January this year, the ED had attached this beach resort – Sai Resort – at Dapoli in Ratnagiri worth more than Rs 10 crore as part of a money laundering probe against Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader and former state minister Parab and others in a case linked to alleged violation of coastal regulation zone provisions in its construction.
The ED arrested Kadam, a Mumbai-based cable operator, here on Friday night. It produced him before a special holiday court of judge S M Tapkire.
The court remanded him in ED’s custody till March 15.
Parab, a three-time Shiv Sena legislator in the Maharashtra Legislative Council, the Upper House of the legislature, had earlier denied his association with this resort. He was questioned by the federal agency in this case earlier.
The money laundering case stems from a complaint filed by the Union environment and forest ministry against Anil Parab, Sai Resort, Sea Conch Resort and some others for alleged violation of the Environment (Protection) Act apart from a linked state police FIR against the former minister and others for “deceiving and causing loss to the state government of Maharashtra”.
The ED has earlier said the probe found that Parab “in connivance” with Kadam got “illegal permission” from local sub-divisional office for conversion of use of land from agricultural to non-agricultural purpose and constructed a resort in violation of CRZ (coastal regulation zone) norms in Dapoli.
Parab obtained “illegal” permission from the state revenue department for construction of a twin bungalow (ground+1 floor) over a piece of land falling under CRZ-III i.e. no development zone and after acquiring permission he illegally constructed “Sai Resort NX” having ground+2 floors, the ED alleged.
Dapoli, about 230 kms from state capital Mumbai, is a scenic coastal hill station and is called Maharashtra’s ‘mini Mahabaleshwar’ because of its round-the-year cool weather and salubrious surroundings. A number of real estate projects comprising villas, row houses and flats are coming up in the area.
