Court accepts ACB closure report in corruption case filed against businessman by Sanjay Raut

Mumbai: A special court here has accepted the closure report filed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in connection with a case against businessman Jitendra Navlani for allegedly accepting over Rs 58.96 crore from various private companies by using the names of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials.

The ACB of the Maharashtra police had registered a corruption case against Navlani in April 2022, on the complaint filed by Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut. The Rajya Sabha member had accused ED officials of running an extortion racket with the help of Navlani.

The probe agency, in its C-summary (closure) report filed in January this year, claimed no evidence was found to suggest that Navlani misused his position or influence to obtain the money illegally.

Their report was accepted by the special ACB court judge A A Nandgaonkar on Wednesday. The detailed order was not available yet.

A C-summary report is filed when the police probe concludes that the first information report (FIR) was registered on mistaken facts.

The ACB, in its report, said that as per the complaint, Navlani had received a total of Rs 58.96 crore through 39 private companies during the financial years 2015 to 2021 in his personal and company bank accounts.

However, the investigation revealed that these transactions were regular business dealings between these 39 private companies and Navlani, the ACB said.

Therefore, no evidence was found to suggest that Navlani misused his position or influence to obtain these funds illegally, it added.

The ACB report stated that Raut in his complaint mentioned he was unaware of the involvement of any ED officials in the alleged misconduct.

Additionally, the complainant in the statement given to the ACB said that none of the 39 companies had actually complained to him about the businessman's conduct, the report claimed.

Raut also stated that he has no information on whether the ED officials' names were used by Navlani to obtain money from private companies, C-summary report said.

Thus, it is clear that the ED or its officials had no connection with the total amount of Rs 58.96 crore paid by 39 companies to Navlani, it added.