ED quizzes Praful Patel over transactions with Iqbal Mirchi's family in 12-hour meeting

Nationalist Congress Party leader and Rajya Sabha member Praful Patel today appeared before the Enforcement Directorate in connection with its probe into Patel's dealings with the family of former drug kingpin Iqbal Mirchi.

During the UPA’s 10-year tenure, Patel was India’s aviation minister between 2004 and 2011 and Heavy Industries Minister till 2014.

Patel reached the ED office in Mumbai at 10.30 am and was quizzed for 12 hours.

During the visit, he was shown evidence of financial transactions between Millennium Developers (in which Patel and his wife were majority shareholders) and Mirchi’s wife Hazra Memon.

The transactions pertain to Millennium’s redevelopment of 15-storey commercial building Ceejay House in Worli, Mumbai. Mirchi’s family was allocated two floors in the redeveloped building admeasuring 14,000 square feet.

Patel has maintained that the Mirchi family had encroached upon the land, and that the land allocated to them was part of a settlement that was approved by the Bombay High Court.

Sources said the ED sought more details on financial transactions related to the redevelopment.

The ED is specifically probing certain financial transactions between Iqbal Mirchi, who died in London in 2013, and Millennium Developers. To this, Patel said he could not recall any transaction with Mirchi or his family as the events took place far in the past.

The agency also asked Patel on whether he had met Mirchi in the past or spoken to him on the phone through a common friend.

Patel’s name came up after the ED started a money laundering case against Mirchi’s family, which allegedly used the development of Ceejay House and other properties to launder ill-gotten money.

Mirchi was a wanted accused in several cases registered against him in India.

The ED had also summoned to Hazra Memon and her two sons Junaid and Asif Mirchi under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. However, they have refused to participate in the investigation, stating the law does not apply to the country where they reside. Junaid and Asif are in London and Mirchi’s wife is in the United Arab Emirates.

Separately, the ED has started the scrutiny of DHFL’s books in the Iqbal Mirchi case. ED submitted in a Mumbai court on Tuesday that property developer Sunblink Real Estates, which is under the ED's lens, was given a loan of Rs 2,186 crore by the NBFC for three properties that are under agency’s lens. The three properties are about to be attached, sources said.