TWO YEARS and a change in government later, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), which had given a clean chit to NCP leader Ajit Pawar and over 70 others in 2020, told a special court last week that it was continuing its investigation into the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB) alleged fraud case. In October 2020, when the Maha Vikas Aghadi government was in power and Pawar was the deputy chief minister, the EOW had filed a 70,000-page closure report in the case, stating that it had found no irregularities. In the closure report, the EOW investigating officer had said that the allegations were of a civil nature and hence he did not find commission of any cognizable offences. A protest petition, objecting to the C-summary closure report filed by the EOW, was filed by the complainant, Surinder Arora, on whose petition before the Bombay High Court an FIR was filed in the case. The hearing on the protest petitions was still in progress before the court and the court had not accepted the closure report yet. On Saturday, Special Public Prosecutor Ajay Misar filed an application informing the special court that the EOW has started further investigation into the case under Section 173 (8) of the Criminal Procedure Code. SPP Misar filed an application seeking return of the documents in the case for further probe. "The decision to conduct further investigation into the case was taken after going through documents filed as part of the protest petition and the probe carried out by the ED. The documents in the case run into over 1.24 lakh pages. The court has been intimated and the return of documents sought. The probe will take into account the lacunae in the previous probe which had led to a closure report being filed," said an official of the EOW. The agency said that it wants to probe irregularities in the sale of sugar cooperatives, including Jarandeshwar Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana, allegedly linked to Pawar's kin. The move by the EOW is also significant after a recent judgment by the Supreme Court, which had said that proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering, probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), cannot continue if there is no predicate offence. If the closure report filed earlier by the EOW was accepted by the court, a separate complaint filed by the ED in the case could not continue. In November 2020, the special court had rejected the ED's intervention plea objecting to the closure report and the clean chit, stating that the investigation of both agencies is "totally different" and it could not intervene in the probe. The protest petition filed by the complainant in the case had said that the sale of Jarandeshwar SSK to Guru Commodity and Services Pvt. Ltd. was "premeditated and illegal". The complainant alleged that it was a shell company. It had claimed that while the sale certificate showed the sugar cooperative was worth Rs 65.65 crore, the sale deed shows the sale price at Rs 18 crore. The protest petition also raised questions about the bidding process, alleging manipulation at the behest of Pawar who was the director of MSCB, allegedly orchestrating the sale as well connected to the purchaser company through his wife. The protest petition filed by Arora had alleged that the investigating officer had not visited the sugar factories and had not recorded the statements of shareholders and employees of the sugar cooperatives. The petition also alleged that the investigating officer's findings were to favour his masters, "influential politicians some of whom are in actual power". The case relates to loans being given to sugar factories without following procedure even after they turned into non-performing assets and their subsequent sale to kin of the accused below market value. In 2019, Pawar was given a clean chit by the Anti-Corruption Bureau in cases related to the irrigation scam, during a political development when Pawar had sworn-in as the deputy CM, extending support to the BJP to form the state government led by Devendra Fadnavis. Fadnavis had resigned in 80 hours, after Pawar withdrew support. After the BJP-Shinde government came to power, state BJP Chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule said he will demand the case reopening.
