New Delhi: A special PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) court in Mumbai has accepted the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) closure report in a money laundering case against Maharashtra Cabinet minister Hasan Mushrif and his three sons, related to their sugar factory in Kolhapur district.
The central agency filed a closure report in the case, citing closure of the predicate offence—which it submitted was a mandatory criterion for continuing a money laundering probe. The agency had cited the Kolhapur Police’s closure of the FIR and the subsequent proceedings before the Bombay High Court as the basis for its closure report filed in August this year.
Currently heading the Medical Education portfolio in the Devendra Fadnavis government in the state, Mushrif landed in the crosshairs of the Enforcement Directorate, Registrar of Companies (ROC) as well as the Maharashtra Police between 2022-23 when he was cabinet minister in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by Uddhav Thackeray.
The ED had opened a money-laundering probe in 2022 based on a case filed by the Registrar of Companies (RoC) under the Companies Act 2013, before a Pune court. However, the case was later that year stayed by the Bombay High Court.
But trouble resurfaced for Mushrif (who was then still with the MVA) and his family after the Kolhapur Police Station lodged a casein February 2023 based on a local resident’s allegation that he was among the 40,000 farmers from the district who were cheated by Hasan Mushrif, when he sought funding for his upcoming sugar factory and promised allotment of shares to farmers who invested.
During the hearing on anticipatory bail applications of Mushrif and his sons, the agency had, in April 2023, informed the court that Mushrif had allegedly collected funds from the farmers by promising to make them shareholders in his upcoming sugar factory in Kolhapur, but instead the money was diverted to companies owned by Mushrif’s three sons—a charge Mushrif’s lawyers denied during court proceedings.
The agency went on to conduct three rounds of searches at the premises linked to Mushrif and his Sar Senapati Santaji Ghorpade Sugar Factory Limited (SSSGSL) the same year, as well as attach movable assets in the form of fixed deposits and cash totalling Rs 2.15 crore.
Months later, Hasan Mushrif was sworn in as minister in Eknath Shinde’s government on 2 July after a vertical split in the Nationalist Congress Party.
Soon after, the Kolhapur Police, in October 2023, filed a closure report in the case, thereby eroding the predicate offence underlying the ED’s money laundering case.
“Thus, as per order of the Hon’ble High Court, the Special Case No.240/2022 arising out of predicate offence C.R. No.30/2023 registered with Murgud Police Station, Taluka Kagal, District Kolhapur has been quashed and set aside. In view of the same, as the predicate offence has been quashed, the offence under the PML Act does not survive. Therefore, the closure report filed by the Enforcement Directorate, Mumbai is redundant,” Special Judge S V Sahare observed, accepting the ED’s closure report.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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