Amruta Fadnavis 'offered' to help extortionist bookie, fashionista: Charge sheet

Mumbai, June 6 (IANS) The Mumbai Police have said that Amruta Fadnavis, wife of Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had offered to help out a bookie Anil Jaisinghani from the cases lodged against him if they were false as he claimed.

In its 733-page charge sheet filed before the Special ACB Court on May 18 -- some details of which are now available -- this conversation took place a couple of days after Amruta lodged a case against the fashionista Aniksha Jaisinghani, the (then) absconding bookie and her father Anil Jaisinghani.

The DyCM's wife had filed a complaint with Malabar Hill Police Station on February 20 after the sensational case blew up with allegations of bribes, extortion, blackmail, threats to Amruta by the Jaisinghani father-daughter duo.

The charge sheet includes an exchange of certain WhatsApp chats between Amruta and the Jaisinghanis of Feb. 22 - two days after she lodged the police complaint.

In one such chat, Amruta assured Anil that "if you are wrongly framed, I can talk to Devenji (her husband Devendra) and tell him to do justice, but I can't succumb to the demands which Aniksha had made about earning illegal money. I know I have not done anything wrong and you and Aniksha, with an intention to blackmail me have operated from day one."

Amruta added that most of the videos which Aniksha had threatened to use against her, would "defame me for some time", but after the truth came out, it would not have any effect.

"If u are really doing it to get justice, then tell me what u really want me to do," Amruta asked Anil, who responded with several audio messages, as per the charge sheet.

In another message, Amruta said even if she agreed to help out Anil, it was not because of the videos with which Aniksha had been blackmailing her.

She demanded of Anil on what assurance he could provide that he would not start demanding more after the cases against him were withdrawn, the manner in which Aniksha had been insisting her to earn illegal money through betting rackets.

Anil contended that Aniksha did what she thought would help him get out of the cases and she had recorded the calls and meetings for their own protection and not to harm Amruta, and it was only information (on betting rackets) she wanted to pass on.

In another chat, Amruta agreed to meet Aniksha to understand his cases and even assured to speak with Devendra after he finished the Pune (Assembly) bypolls campaign.

Amruta also contended that her relations with her husband (Devendra) had reportedly soured since 2019 and she apprehended a divorce after this case, as per the charge sheet.

Incidentally, Amruta had blocked Aniksha a day before filing her police complaint and then Anil started communicating with the DyCM's wife.

Among other things, Anil accused Amruta for accepting dollars from Aniksha at the office of a leading music and film production house and his daughter had given a bag of Rs 98 lakh to one of her (Amruta's) staffers.

The police charge sheet followed the investigations into the case initiated after Amruta's complaint on February 20 accusing the father-daughter duo of blackmail, attempt to extort Rs 10 crore, another attempt to bribe her with Rs 1 crore to help her father, offers to provide information about cricket bookies to make money, etc.

The Jaisinghanis, including a relative Nirmal were later arrested and booked under various charges, recorded statements of 13 witnesses, investigated the calls and bank records, assets and other things in Maharashtra and other states.