All decisions of the bank were at the ‘behest’ of Pawar: Report

Two out of the three reports relied upon by the complainant seeking prosecution of NCP chief Sharad Pawar have recommended to charge him under provisions of criminal conspiracy and abetting the multicrore Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB) scam. The reports have concluded that all the alleged irregularities in the bank were only because of Pawar.

Notably, Pawar has been named in an ECIR filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday evening. This comes after the anti money laundering agency took cognizance of the FIR registered by the Mumbai Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW).

The FIR lodged by the EOW in accordance with the orders of the Bombay High Court rely majorly on the findings of the NABARD and also two separate commissions. The reports have been extensively referred to by the complainant Surinder Arora.

The reports state,

“For illegally sanctioning loans and also for selling a few sugar factories, Sharad Pawar could be prosecuted for criminal conspiracy and also for abetting the scam.”

“All the decisions of the MSC Bank were taken at the behest of Sharad Pawar, thus he can be prosecuted,” the reports highlighted in the complaint, add.

Similar is the contention of complainant Arora. “All the accused, who were all set to tear apart the cooperative sector to fill their treasuries, under the implicit direction of Sharad Pawar, who was holding the reigns of all the pillars of the cooperative sector in Maharashtra,” Arora has said in his complaint. Not to forget that Pawar was initially not named as a party in the criminal public interest litigation filed in the HC and neither was he named as an accused in the EOW’s FIR. His name had suddenly cropped up in the additional statements of the complainant Arora.

The reports and also the complaint relied upon by the ED, however, do not mention any direct relation of Pawar to the bank.