Mumbai, April 7 The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday appealed to a court here to decide on the discharge applications of NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar and others in the alleged Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank (MSCB) scam based on merit, following the recent acceptance of a closure report in a related case.
The ED registered its money laundering case based on a FIR filed by the Mumbai Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in August 2019.
The First Information Report alleged that the then officers and directors of the MSCB fraudulently sold SSKs (Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana or cooperative sugar mills) at throwaway prices to their relatives/private persons without following due procedure.
However, the EOW later filed a closure report citing a lack of evidence, which a special court for MPs/MLAs cases recently accepted.
Rohit Pawar and 11 others named as accused in the ED's case then sought discharge from the money laundering case.
In its response, the central agency said that while the lower court had accepted the closure report, a 2021 writ petition challenging the earlier rejection of the ED's intervention application was still pending before the Bombay High Court.
The ED, which had submitted prosecution complaints against 17 persons, urged the special court to decide on the discharge applications based on merit.
The alleged scam involved the disbursal of loans to cooperative sugar factories, spinning mills and other entities by district and cooperative banks without following the established norms. The MSCB is Maharashtra's apex cooperative bank.
The state exchequer suffered losses of Rs 25,000 crore between January 2007 to December 2017 due to irregularities in loan disbursal.
