Maharashtra: Court Accepts Closure Report In ₹25,000 Crore MSC Bank Scam Case Days After Ajit Pawar’s Death

Mumbai: The special MP and MLA court on Friday accepted the closure report submitted by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in the Rs 25,000 crore Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB) scam case.

The closure comes days after the death of Ajit Pawar, who was also alleged to have been involved in the case. The court's acceptance of the report came nearly a month after Pawar, then deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, died in a plane crash in Baramati.

The court, while accepting the closure report, has rejected all the pleas filed by the complainants questioning the closure report and also rejected the plea filed by the Enforcement Directorate for intervention in the hearing on EOW's closure report.

Mahesh Jadhav, special judge for cases involving MPs and MLAs, accepted the `C-Summary' report filed by the EOW stating that no criminal case was made out. The court also rejected protest petitions filed by activist Anna Hazare and others challenging the closure report.

What is the scam about?

The alleged scam pertained to the disbursal of loans to cooperative sugar factories, spinning mills and other entities by district and cooperative banks without following norms. The MSCB is Maharashtra's apex cooperative bank. The probe began in 2019 following directives from the Bombay High Court.

Besides Pawar, who was then a director of one of the district banks, the First Information Report named government officials, the then directors and officials of the MSCB, and others. The state exchequer suffered losses of Rs 25,000 crore between January 2007 to December 2017 due to irregularities in the disbursal of loans, the EOW alleged.

(With inputs from PTI)

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