NCP leader Hasan Mushrif challenges ED summons, approaches Bombay HC

Nationalist Congress Party leader Hasan Mushrif's lawyer submitted a request to the Enforcement Directorate seeking more time for his client to appear before the agency for questioning.

The ED summoned the NCP MLA today in the money-laundering case as part of its investigation into alleged irregularities related to a Kolhapur-based sugar co-operative with which his sons are allegedly associated.

Mushrif contends that the Bombay High Court had stayed the proceedings in the scheduled offence case last year itself. Mushrif on Monday approached the HC questioning the ED's actions, requesting the quashing of the predicate FIR related to the scheduled offence and a stay on any coercive action against him in the case.

ED had summoned Mushrif to record his statement. This came after the agency searched his Kolhapur home on Saturday. The former minister was not at home when the searches were carried out.

The Saturday raid was the third in the last two months on the former labour minister for the alleged diversion of Rs 40 crores in the Sar Senapati Santaji Ghorpade Sugar factory of Kolhapur which is purportedly run and controlled by his family and relatives.