NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate has initiated a money laundering probe against NCP chief Sharad Pawar , his nephew Ajit Pawar and the then chairman, MDs and directors of Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank for alleged loan frauds to the tune of Rs 25,000 crore.

Others named in the case are Diliprao Deshmukh, Ishrlal Jain, Jayant Patil, Shivajirao Nalvade, Anand Rao Adsul, Rajendra Shingane and Madan Patil.

The bank had provided loans to cooperative sugar factories in Maharashtra and many of the sanctioning authorities were found to be connected with owners of these sugar mills. A case was registered first by the economic offence wing of the Maharashtra police on the direction of the Bombay high court. The ED has taken the police FIR as the basis to register its own investigation under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Coming just ahead of the Maharashtra assembly elections , the move of the agency is significant and likely to raise questions on the timing but agency sources said the PMLA case was based on the court direction to probe the money laundering charges into the massive cooperative loan scam and sale of the sugar factories at throwaway prices.

Many of these cooperative sugar factories have become sick and were sold by the directors at a price much “below the reserve price” which ultimately gave gains to the purchasers. The ED is likely to probe Sharad Pawar and his nephew’s connection with many of these sugar factories that ultimately benefited people as they were sold at below reserve price by the state cooperative bank.

According to the sources, the purchasers of these sugar factories had personal and political links with the board of directors of the bank. In fact, in many cases, the consent of the borrowing sugar factories was not taken while their units were disposed of.

Sharad Pawar’s NCP had recently joined hands with the Congress and is the main opposition to the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance in the upcoming assembly elections in Maharashtra. Pawar’s close associate and former civil aviation minister Prafula Patel is already facing ED investigation in the Air India scam.

Patel was questioned twice by the agency at the ED headquarters in Delhi in June. His statements were recorded in connection with a money laundering case being investigated by the agency against corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar.

The former civil aviation minister’s name cropped up during questioning of Talwar who has allegedly admitted to the fact that he had constantly been in touch with the then minister’s office for policy changes that had helped some foreign airlines.

The interrogation of Patel has been inconclusive and will continue further as the agency has obtained crucial evidence where the corporate lobbyist had successfully managed to tweak some policy decisions benefitting foreign airlines.

In its money trail against Talwar, the ED has established remittances to the tune of Rs 370 crore in the shell companies associated with him which it has alleged are bribes from foreign airlines that had benefitted from tweaking policies by the civil aviation ministry during the previous UPA regime.



In Video: Enforcement Directorate initiates money laundering probe against Sharad Pawar, nephew Ajit Pawar