Shiv Sena (UBT) secretary Suraj Chavan was questioned by a team of Mumbai Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on Monday in connection with a money laundering case relating to Covid-19 treatment centres set up by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Chavan is a close aide of former Maharashtra minister Aaditya Thackeray.
The questioning comes days after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday night arrested businessman Sujith Patkar one of the four partners of the firm Lifeline Hospital Management Services (LHMS) which bagged a ₹38-crore civic contract to supply medical manpower to the Jumbo Covid Centres in Worli and Dahisar during the pandemic. A senior BMC health official, Dr Kishore Bisure, who headed the civic medical team at the Dahisar centre was also arrested in connection with the ED's money-laundering probe into the alleged Covid centres scam.Last month, the ED had conducted searches at 15 premises in the case, including those of Patkar, Chavan and BMC’s then-additional municipal commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal.
Patkar’s firm is accused of receiving around ₹31.84 crore from the BMC as part of the contract even though between 50 and 60 per cent of the medical staff at the centres, for which it had billed the civic body, were allegedly non-existent. Bisure had allegedly connived with the firm to approve its dubious bills related to manipulated attendance sheets of the employees at the Covid centres, and received a laptop, cash and funds in his driver’s account, the ED claimed.