MUMBAI: The Adjudicating Authority, appointed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act or PMLA, on Tuesday confirmed the attachment of Satara's Jarandeshwar Sahakari Sugar Karkhana (cooperative sugar mill) worth over Rs 65 crore linked to Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had attached the sugar mill last year in July, and its confirmation will help the agency to take its possession. "After getting the attachment confirmation order copy, the ED will initiate the process of taking possession of the mill," said an ED source.
The affected parties in the cases can also file an application before the special PMLA court for restoration of the property. In this case, affected parties are the farmers who were members of the sugar mill and Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank (MSCB), who suffered loss due to the fraudulent sale of the sick sugar mill through an auction over a decade ago.
The ED has found that MSCB auctioned the mill in 2010 at an undervalued price. Ajit Pawar was one of the members of the board of directors of MSCB at the time.
The mill was purchased by a company, Guru Commodity Services Pvt Ltd. A part of the funds towards the mill's purchase came from Sparkling Soil Pvt Ltd, a company related to Pawar and his wife Sunetra Pawar, said ED.
ED alleged that Guru Commodity Services is proxy owner of the mill and its actual control is with Pawar's firm Sparkling Soil. After purchasing the mill, Guru Commodity leased it to another firm controlled by the Pawar family. Within a month of leasing out the mill, the Pune District Central Cooperative Bank (DCCB), in which Pawar was one of the directors, had sanctioned a Rs 100 crore loan to the mill. Subsequently, over the next few years, an additional Rs 600 crore loan was granted to the mill by Pune DCCB and others.
The ED is investigating a money laundering case related to the MSCB fraud. It was alleged that MSCB officials sanctioned loans to several sick sugar mills and when those mills defaulted on the loans, they were auctioned to recover the loss. The MSCB officials ensured that relatives or close associates of senior politicians got the mills during the auction at throwaway prices. Jarandeshwar sugar mill was one of them.
Seventy-six past directors of MSCB, including many senior politicians, are under the ED scanner in the case.
