The ED's counsel told the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act Court on Monday that several incriminating pieces of evidence were found against Sameer.
Sameer Bhujbal, nephew of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Chhagan Bhujbal, has refused to cooperate in the Rs 840-crore money-laundering case during his week-long custody in the Enforcement Directorate (ED) .
The ED's counsel told the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act Court on Monday that several incriminating pieces of evidence were found against Sameer.
The court accepted the ED's request for Sameer's judicial custody. He was remanded in judicial custody till February 22. Sameer's counsel will soon file a bail application.
The ED said in its remand plea that several companies were floated by the accused, with his employees as directors, which were utilised for layering funds through a maze of transactions.
"Those funds were then channelled into the business activities of these companies. The economic rationale of forming multitude of such companies appears to be for channelling and laundering the proceeds generated out of criminal activity," it said.
ED sources said he avoided crucial questions and did not give a single satisfactory answer.
According to PTI reports, ED sleuths made efforts to apprehend some of his key associates, namely, Nilesh Shahu and Satyen Kesarkar, but in vain. "These two individuals are confidantes of the Bhujbals and their testimony is crucial," it said.
Sameer was allegedly managing several private firms floated by the Bhujbal family, along with Chhagan Bhujbal's son Pankaj. The ED has alleged that the books of accounts of some of these firms reflect unexplained transactions, which, the agency suspects, are nothing but "kickbacks received by the Bhujbals."
Pankaj Bhujbal has to appear before ED in a day or two. His passport and some important documents had already been seized by sleuths on February 6.
The ED has registered a case under the anti-money laundering Act against Chhagan Bhujbal and 19 other accused. This was after the Maharashtra Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) filed a case against Chhagan Bhujbal, as part of its investigations into alleged irregularities in the award of a contract of three projects in 2006 when he was PWD minister.
The contracts, which were given to Chamankar Developers, included the construction of Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi, a new Regional Transport Office (RTO) building in Andheri, and a state guest house at High Mount, Malabar Hill, Mumbai.
It is alleged that the contracts were awarded without inviting tenders, and, in return, firms and trusts controlled by the Bhujbal family received kickbacks.
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