Bank staff subjected to torturous behaviour to give false statements against Mushrif, NCP leader’s kin tell court

“The events which conspired between the night of January 31, 2023 and February 1, 2023 would show that the raid and the so-called investigation was not aimed at unearthing the truth nor was there an attempt to find any evidence of possible crime, but the whole intention and the aim was to get statements of the employees recorded to the effect that the loans advanced by the bank were at the behest of Ex-Cabinet Minister, Mr. Hasan Mushrif and that the said transactions were questionable,” the anticipatory bail pleas filed through lawyers Prashant Patil and Swapnil Ambure stated.

According to the pleas, bank employees and their family members are ready and willing to give affidavits of the “torture” meted out to them, adding some have already initiated legal proceedings.

“Needless to add, despite of the antics of the Respondent (ED) which led to the employees of the bank fainting, one individual getting a cardiac arrest and woman employee being called at 2 am creating sense of terror and chaos to their families and children, the Respondent failed in their eventual quest of getting false statement recorded against Mr. Mushrif,” the applications stated. They further stated that on February 1, officers of ED “barged in along with CRPF commandos” and entered the office of the bank’s CFO and started the raid, even as the bank’s regular functioning with its customers, mostly farmers, was underway on the premises.

Mushrif’s sons have alleged that bank officers were “humiliated, threatened, abused and assaulted” by ED officers, who insisted they prepare and sign statements stating that Mushrif was instrumental in distribution of loan process. It was further alleged by them that the ED officers were getting calls at regular interval and after each call, they would “get frustrated and increased their aggression”.

According to the allegations, employees were made to stand holding their toes for two to three hours, were not allowed to use the bathroom, were kept starving, and a female clerk was called to the office at 2am. They were also threatened with arrests, it was alleged. The applications stated that the bank is making profits and no FIR was filed against it till date.

The applications also said that the proceedings against Sar Senapati Santaji Ghorpade Sugar Factory Limited, in which Mushrif’s sons are directors, under the Companies Act have been stayed by the Bombay High Court in May last year and yet the ED had filed an ECIR (FIR) considering it a predicate offence under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act “due to political agenda”. They also added that in December last year, an adjudicating authority had dropped proceedings on benami properties against Mushrif’s sons and the sugar factory.

“It is also a matter of record that lot of political leaders have come on record to say that the Respondent and the threat of arrest is used for meeting political agendas and the present case is one of the classic example as to how the situation is manipulated in order to harass political leaders and their families,” the pleas said.

The ED had filed a complaint on the basis of a complaint filed by the registrar of companies (RoC) against the sugar factory and eight persons, including Mushrif’s family members, in a Pune court. The ED had raised suspicion about the company’s income source, claiming that they do not have any business but their large reserves of surplus show that they may be present on paper or be bogus companies.

The applications have claimed that the RoC had not followed procedure in filing the complaint. They also claimed that the action was at the behest of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kirit Somaiya. The court will hear the applications on February 16