Heat on NCP netas: ED attaches sugar mill linked to Ajit Pawar

MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached a sugar mill worth Rs 65 crore in Satara leased to a company related to deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and his wife Sunetra Pawar, as part of the probe into a money laundering case pertaining to Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank (MSCB), an ED press release said.
Over 70 politicians are accused in the case and this is the first attachment in the case. The ED statement details a sequence of transactions which link the assets to Ajit Pawar. It said the mill was purchased in the auction by a company called Guru Commodity Services Private Ltd and leased to another named Jarandeshwar Sugar Mills Private Ltd.
The agency said the majority stake in Jarandeshwar is held by another firm called Sparkling Soil Pvt Ltd, which “investigations” have revealed is a “related company to Ajit Pawar, Deputy Chief Minister of State of Maharashtra and Sunetra (his wife)”. In the MSCB case which was investigated on directions from the Bombay high court, ED has alleged that MSCB officials sanctioned loans to sick sugar mills and when the mills defaulted on the loans, they were auctioned off to recover the loss. The MSCB officials ensured that relatives or close associates of senior politicians got the mills during the auction at throwaway prices.
In August 2019, the Economic Offences Wing of the Mumbai police registered a cheating case against past office bearers of MSCB. Subsequently, the ED too registered a money laundering case for investigation where 76 past directors of MSCB (many senior politicians) were named as accused.
The ED has found that MSCB auctioned Jarandeshwar Sahakari Sugar Karkhana (SSK) in 2010 at an undervalued price. Ajit Pawar was one of the members of the board of directors of MSCB at the time.
Jarandeshwar SSK was purchased by a company, Guru Commodity Services Pvt, Ltd, and leased to Jarandeshwar Sugar Mills Pvt Ltd. A part of the funds towards the mill’s purchase came from Sparkling Soil Pvt Ltd, a company related to Ajit Pawar and his wife, said the investigating agency.
According to ED, Jarandeshwar Sugar Mills Pvt Ltd and Guru Commodity Services Pvt Ltd are proxy owners of Jarandeshwar SSK and actual control is with Sparkling Soil Pvt Ltd.
Within a month of leasing out the mill, the Pune District Central Cooperative Bank (DCCB), in which Ajit Pawar was one of the director, had sanctioned a Rs 100-crore loan to Jarandeshwar SSK. Subsequently, over the next few years, an additional Rs 600 crore loan was granted to Jarandeshwar SSK by Pune DCCB and others.
A Mumbai-based developer, Omkar Group, had floated Guru Commodity Services along with another Mumbai-based developer, Shivalik Ventures. Funds to purchase Jarandeshwar SSK in 2010 were put together with the assistance of the company linked to Ajit Pawar. Omkar group promoter Babulal Varma is now in jail in a money laundering case related to Yes Bank.