Mumbai: The complainant in the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB) case will demand a re-investigation in the case before a special court which is set to hear the matter on October 16.
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) last month filed a closure report in the alleged Rs 25,000 crore scam. Subsequently, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) which is probing money-laundering allegations in the case filed an intervention application challenging the closure report. Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and NCP veteran Ajit Pawar and 69 others were given clean chit in the case.
The case pertains to thousands of crores obtained in loans by co-operative sugar factories (CSFs), spinning mills and other processing units from district and cooperative banks. It is alleged that top executives and office-bearers were given loans in a fraudulent manner.
The complainant in the case, activist Surinder Mohan Arora, 57, an Andheri resident, sought action against political leaders and bank officials on the basis of a 2011 National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) inspection report and reports of inquiry under provisions of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960. Both reports had disclosed rampant malpractices in loans disbursed by MSC Bank and consequent loss of crores of rupees.
“We will file our say. We will be opposing the closure and appealing the court to not accept it. We want the case to re-investigate by an impartial investigating officer,” said Advocate Satish Talekar, Arora’s lawyer. “The probe was done to hush up the case and Arora had written and communicated about the investigation done,” he said.
ED will find it hard to prove its case as they had initiated the probe based on the offence registered by EOW. The Prevention of Money-Laundering Act (PMLA) only deals with the profit of crimes emanating from the predicate offences.
In this case, the predicate offence is registered with the EOW which has found no criminality in its investigation.
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