Mumbai, Mar 16 (PTI) There was no dishonest or fraudulent intention on the part of the accused, a local court has observed while accepting the police’s closure report in the case related to an alleged Rs 25,000 crore scam at the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB).
Mere irregularity or lapses in procedure cannot be converted into offences, it ruled while giving a clean chit to the late deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and other accused.
The court noted that “there is no prior meeting of minds or agreement between the directors (bank) to do an illegal action by illegal means”.
“There is an absence of dishonest, fraudulent, or misappropriation of property for own use which is entrusted with the public servant’..There is no document which is called a forged one,” the court added.
The court stated that about Rs 850 crore has been recovered, and the process for recovering the remaining amount was underway.
Mahesh Jadhav, special judge for cases involving MPs and MLAs, accepted the C-Summary report filed by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on February 27.
The reasoned order was made available on Monday.
A ‘C Summary’ report is filed by the police when a complaint is found to be “neither true nor false”.
The court’s acceptance of the report came nearly a month after Pawar, then deputy chief minister, died in a plane crash in Baramati.
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 court had rejected more than 20 protest petitions, including the one filed by activist Anna Hazare, challenging the closure report.
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 state exchequer suffered losses of Rs 25,000 crore between January 2007 and December 2017 due to irregularities in disbursal of loans, the EOW had alleged.
However, the court found that the investigation in the case doesn’t reflect that any wrongful gain was acquired by the directors or the employees.
It noted that the concern factories have not sustained wrongful loss.
The case saw multiple twists since 2020. During the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government (in which Ajit Pawar was the finance minister) the EOW filed a closure report stating that no criminal offence was made out.
However, after the change of government in 2022, the probe agency sought to reopen the case.
In January 2024, months after Ajit Pawar split the Nationalist Congress Party and joined the ruling alliance, the agency once again filed a closure report.
After extensive hearings that continued for about two years, the court found that the “action conducted by the authority” is not covered within the meaning of illegality.
“Merely because some directions of NABARD area were not followed, it did not amount to a cognisable offence,” the special judge said.
The court pointed out that the board of directors was already exempted from the action as per the report of district judge Manikrao Jadhav (retd) under Sections 83 and 88 of the Co-operative Act.
It highlighted that personal loans were not distributed, and the credit facility extended by the bank “seems to be properly secured by mortgage”.
“The charge was credited against the said loan. The recovery proceedings are filed before the co-operative court. The necessary security and bonds were obtained,” the court said.
The court added that the loan against the sugar factory was created based on the letter by NABARD.
“The public servant is connected in good faith while discharging their office duty. There is no evidence on record which shows that the investigation carried by the investigating agency is designed or negligent. It does not seem to be a tempting evidence or tailored investigation,” the judge noted.
After considering all aspects of the matter, the court concluded that the documentary evidence, witness statements, and the closure reports provided by the investigating agency did not demonstrate the commission of an offence.
Therefore, all the protest petitions, including the protest petition of the original complainant, deserve to be rejected, and the ‘C’ summary report is liable to be accepted, the special judge ruled. PTI AVI NSK
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