ED asks special court to decide Rohit Pawar discharge plea in MSCB case on merits

Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday requested a special court that the discharge pleas filed by MLA Rohit Pawar and 11 other accused in the Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank money laundering case may now be decided on legal merits, after its attempts to oppose closure reports filed by Mumbai Police's Economic Offences Wing failed.In its reply, the ED acknowledged that the EOW's closure reports in the alleged Rs 25,000 crore MSCB scam had been accepted. It also referred to the rejection of its intervention applications and urged the court to hear and decide the discharge applications on merit. "In view of consideration of the same, it is requested to the… Court that the said discharge applications may please be heard and decided on merit and appropriate orders be passed," the ED submitted.With EOW's FIR as the basis of ED's probe, in 2023, ED filed its first chargesheet against Jarandeshwar Sugar Mills Ltd in connection with the purchase of Jarandeshwar Sugar Co-operative Mill. The chargesheet mentioned Ajit Pawar's and Sunetra Pawar's link to the company but did not name them as accused. Later, ED filed a supplementary chargesheet naming NCP MLA Prajakt Tanpure, among others. The ED alleged cheating, misconduct and money laundering in auctioning of the mills and linked the suspicious transactions to Ajit Pawar, Sunetra Pawar, Shiv Sena's Arjun Khotkar and companies of NCP (SP) netas Rohit Pawar and Tanpure as well.On Jan 20, 2024, EOW submitted a closure report a second time. The EOW had given a clean chit in the case to the late Ajit Pawar and Dy CM Sunetra Pawar, along with their nephew Rohit Pawar. In 2024, when the second closure report was submitted, Ajit Pawar was Dy CM in the Mahayuti govt. The ED said that earlier, in 2020, EOW had filed a first closure report stating that no criminal offence was made out. The EOW later reopened the probe in 2022, but filed a second closure report in early 2024. The ED again shared material and sought to intervene, but in Feb 2026 the court accepted the closure report and dismissed the ED's second intervention plea. The ED's stand assumes significance because the Supreme Court, in a July 27, 2022 ruling, held that proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act cannot continue in the absence of a predicate or scheduled offence. A scheduled offence is the criminal case on which a money laundering prosecution is based. In this matter, the EOW case forms the scheduled offence for the ED's prosecution. The alleged scam concerns 31 district central co-operative banks under the MSCB umbrella. These banks, many headed by influential politicians, had allegedly granted loans to cooperative sugar factories in violation of norms. After the factories defaulted, MSCB auctioned their assets to recover dues. It was alleged that the auction process was manipulated so that several sugar mills were sold at undervalued prices to relatives or associates of bank office-bearers, causing losses to the bank. In its reply to the discharge pleas, the ED traced the case timeline and said it had filed a main prosecution complaint in 2023 under the PMLA, followed by three supplementary complaints. It said the special court took cognisance of the money laundering case on multiple dates between mid-2023 and mid-2025. During this period, the ED said it shared details of financial irregularities and transactions with the EOW. The ED sought permission to place additional material before the court, but its application was rejected on technical grounds. That order has been challenged before the Bombay High Court and remains pending. The special court heard arguments on the discharge pleas on Tuesday and adjourned the matter to April 13.