Mumbai: Nearly seven years after the Bombay Excessive Courtroom ordered an inquiry into the alleged fraud within the Maharashtra State Co-operative Financial institution (MSCB), the particular courtroom has accepted the 2024 C Abstract Closing Report filed by the Financial Offenses Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police, formally closing the case.
The choice brings to an finish the legal proceedings in opposition to over 70 folks, together with former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and his spouse Sunetra, who have been named in a First Data Report (FIR) filed in 2019 on the instructions of the Excessive Courtroom.
This comes a few month after Sunetra Pawar was sworn in as Deputy CM of Maharashtra, carrying on her late husband’s political legacy within the Mahayuti authorities within the state. Final week, Sunetra was additionally sworn in because the nationwide president of the Nationalist Congress Occasion (NCP).
The case attracted political consideration, with Shiv Sena’s Anandrao Adsul, Peasant-Labor Occasion’s Jayant Patil, Congress’ Diliprao Deshmukh and Madan Patil, and NCP’s Ishwarlal Jain and Rajendra Singhane among the many accused.
The timing of the discharge of the FIR was additionally attention-grabbing because it got here forward of the Maharashtra meeting polls. The Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP) and the undivided Shiv Sena, which seized energy from the Congress-NCP alliance in 2014, have been looking for re-election for a second time period.
The MSCB is claimed to have sanctioned loans value Rs 25,000 crore to cooperative sugar mills regardless of their weak monetary standing and sometimes with out collateral. The manufacturing unit was then discovered to be ailing and was allegedly offered to an in depth relative of a sure politician.
In the course of the seven years which have come to be often known as the Maharashtra State Cooperative Financial institution ‘rip-off’, there have been a number of adjustments of presidency and ups and downs within the state.
How exploration started
It was means again in April 2012, when Surinder Mohan Arora, a Pune-based businessman and activist, began elevating allegations of large-scale monetary irregularities within the cooperative banking system in Maharashtra.
He alleged that MSCB, District Central Cooperative Banks and related sugar mills and spinning mills have been sanctioning loans with out correct collateral, leading to losses to the exchequer. These allegations shaped the idea of a public curiosity litigation (PIL).
After a prolonged course of, the HC on August 22, 2019 directed the EOW to register an FIR inside 5 days and conduct an in depth investigation. Subsequently, an FIR was filed on August 26, charging critical offenses below the Indian Penal Code (IPC), together with breach of belief, dishonest, forgery and conspiracy, along with the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Greater than 70 folks have been named as whistleblowers, together with former administrators and officers of MSCB, district cooperative banks and cooperative sugar mills, in addition to politicians related to these establishments.
On September 10, 2020, the EOW filed its first C Abstract Closing Report with the Particular Courtroom, concluding that no legal offense had been dedicated in opposition to any of the defendants.
By then the federal government had modified arms. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), led by Uddhav Thackeray, was in energy, comprising the then undivided Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress. Ajit Pawar was the deputy CM.
C-Abstract Closure Report is filed when the investigator concludes that the recorded materials doesn’t reveal the fee of a legal offense. If accepted by the courtroom, it constitutes a judicial dedication that legal prosecution is unwarranted primarily based on the info investigated, though civil, regulatory, or administrative penalties might come up from the identical transaction.
Following the EOW’s motion, Arora filed her first protest petition on October 27, 2020, difficult the police findings and calling for additional investigation. This motion allowed the case to proceed regardless of an preliminary advice to shut it.
Whereas the protest petition was pending, developments surrounding the investigation continued. On October 10, 2022, the EOW knowledgeable the particular courtroom that each the complainant and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had raised points that weren’t investigated through the preliminary investigation.
Police sought permission from the courtroom to conduct additional investigations, successfully resuming scrutiny of mortgage sanctions, recoveries and gross sales of cooperative sugar factories associated to the case.
By this time, the MVA authorities had been overthrown and the Mahayuti authorities, consisting solely of the BJP and Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde, was in energy. After the vertical cut up of the NCP in July 2023, the Ajit Pawar-led NCP joined this authorities.
The next 12 months, the EOW filed a second C-Abstract Closing Report on March 1, 2024, stating that even after contemplating the supporting supplies and arguments offered by the complainant, the important components of the legal offense had not but been established.
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ED involvement
In 2019, primarily based on the EOW case, the ED registered a case for alleged cash laundering in opposition to the defendants. This precipitated a direct stir because it named NCP founder Sharad Pawar as an accused together with others. All the different defendants have been administrators or officers of MSCB till 2011, however Mr. Pawar had no direct connection to the corporate or the case.
The ED transfer grew to become a political spectacle forward of the meeting polls in the identical 12 months, as Sharad Pawar declared that he would seem for questioning on a specified day and NCP staff gathered exterior the ED workplace. The regulation and order group contacted Pawar and requested him to not come. The case in opposition to Pawar senior ultimately hit a wall.
In the meantime, the ED had filed a movement in 2020 to intervene within the investigation and proceedings, however the courtroom dismissed it stating that the company was not an aggrieved celebration.
In March 2023, 4 months earlier than Ajit Pawar joined the Mahayuti authorities, the federal government filed the primary chargesheet in opposition to two corporations related to the Jalandeshwar sugar mill, mentioning that the deputy CM had hyperlinks with the mills and firms concerned within the incident. Subsequently, the ED filed two extra chargesheets in opposition to a number of corporations and senior ministers, first in August after which in September.
The ED filed a second intervention in March 2024, difficult the EOW’s closure report, this time citing the indictment and investigation to show it was the aggrieved celebration.
The Financial Intelligence Bureau had additionally provisionally hooked up belongings value Rs 502 crore belonging to Baramati Agro sugar mill, headed by Rohit Pawar, Ajit Pawar’s nephew and MLA from Sharad Pawar’s NCP camp.
The transfer comes lower than two months earlier than the 2024 parliamentary polls. The ED had alleged that Kannad Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana, a sugar mill in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, was concerned in bidding for the mill, which was discovered to be problematic by the MSCB.
EOW’s closure report relies on an inner investigation and findings that MSCB didn’t incur any quantitative losses and that its mortgage restoration procedures have been in compliance with the regulation. This prompted Surinder Arora to file a second protest petition and the matter was positioned below judicial consideration.
In January 2025, the ED summoned Rohit Pawar and interrogated him for nearly 10 hours. “We’re consistently combating in opposition to this authorities and establishments. We now have submitted all the required paperwork to the ED and have been summoned on February 1. We’ll go once more,” Rohit instructed reporters after being requested to look for questioning once more in February.
After interrogation, the ED in June filed a chargesheet within the Particular Prevention of Cash Laundering Act (PMLA) courtroom naming three extra accused — Rohit Pawar, Baramati Agro Ltd. and Hitech Engineering Company India Ltd. director Rajendra Ingwale, whose funds have been allegedly transferred by Rohit’s firm.
In July, a particular courtroom admitted the indictment and located that Rohit Pawar knowingly participated within the fraud. Nonetheless, the courtroom had granted reduction to Rohit in August, saying the judgment on the EOW’s closure report was important and the ED case couldn’t proceed as soon as the predicate offense was concluded. The EOW of the Mumbai Police had filed a closure report in March 2024.
Newest growth standing
In February 2026, after listening to the prosecution, the petitioner, and the interveners, the PMLA courtroom accepted the second C abstract closure report, dismissed the protest petition, and rejected the ED’s plea for continuation of proceedings associated to the cash laundering costs.
The courtroom discovered that the investigation had not disclosed ample materials to proceed with legal prosecution, and that suspicions and political controversy alone couldn’t permit the matter to proceed.
The conclusion of the case has nice political implications. Ajit Pawar, one of the influential politicians in Maharashtra, died in a airplane crash on January 28, simply weeks earlier than the particular courtroom acquired the closure report. Quickly after, Sunetra Pawar shortly rose to prominence as she grew to become the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra and the president of the NCP.
The acceptance of the C-summary seems to have demonstrated the strengthening of her place inside each the celebration and the federal government. The ED’s cash laundering case relies on and associated to the EOW’s FIR, which was first filed in 2019. Underneath the PMLA, ED investigations sometimes require that the underlying legal exercise be clearly established.
Because the EOW has mentioned that no such legal offense has occurred on this case, the courtroom’s acceptance of the report might create a hurdle within the ED’s investigation and result in its suspension except the authorities can show any new crimes associated to MSCB and the sugar mill.
(Edited by Tony Lai)
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