MUMBAI: A special court in Mumbai on Thursday rejected an intervention application filed by the ED challenging the closure report filed by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Mumbai police in the Rs 25,000 crore Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank scam.
It is alleged that bank officials granted loans to cooperative sugar factories, whose owners were connected with them, to benefit the bank’s directors. The scam was allegedly perpetrated over a period of 15 years, from 2002 to 2017. The court said the application by ED to intervene “is not tenable and is rejected. It said it was “not passing orders on the report as an opportunity is required to be given to the informant to contest”.
The ED in the last hearing had cited bids placed by deputy CM Ajit Pawar’s family in acquiring the sugar mills auctioned by the bank while he was the director. Last September, the police had registered an FIR on directions of the Bombay HC in a PIL filed by businessman Surinder Arora. The PIL named Pawar and former NCP leaders Vijaysingh Mohite-Patilas bank’s former directors and alleged foul play in loan disbursals.
Arora’s counsel S B Talekar said the “offences investigated by the EOW and being investigated by ED arise out of the same transactions of either sanctioning and disbursement of illegal loans or illegal sale of cooperative sugar factories."