On the evening of September 24, 2019, a two-page document did the rounds of journalists’ WhatsApp groups in Mumbai. Its contents were explosive: it claimed that Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar had been booked by the Enforcement Directorate in a ₹25,000-crore scam involving the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank, or MSCB.

The media, solely on the basis of this document that didn’t have a letterhead or a signature, ran with the story of Pawar’s involvement in the scam. The timing was interesting: exactly a month before results are to be declared of the Maharashtra Assembly election. 

While the ED had indeed booked Pawar, his name does not appear in the FIR filed by the Mumbai police, audit and inquiry reports on the alleged scam do not mention him. Pawar isn’t, and has never been, an office-bearer of the MSCB. When he offered to give a statement to the ED, the agency refused to take it. A senior BJP leader even said Pawar’s name was “nowhere in the entire case”.

So, how is he involved?

Let’s begin with the WhatsApp document.

According to this document, loans were given by the MSCB to Cooperative Sugar Factories, or CSFs. The owners of the CSFs had “connections” with MSCB officials. “There were several irregularities in the sanctioning of the loans committed, only with the purpose of extending benefits to the directors of the lending bank for personal gains thereby defrauding and cheating and bank and its shareholders,” it said.

The document said the chairman, managing directors and directors of the MSCB “along with Sharad Pawar” and others “were given loans in a fraudulent manner by MSC Bank and in process several illegalities were committed”. It said a criminal PIL was filed on January 28, 2019, in a case related to the MSCB. On August 22, the document said, the Mumbai High Court directed the Economic Offences Wing of the Mumbai Police to register an FIR. An FIR was filed on August 26 and an Enforcement Case Information Report recorded on September 23 against the MSCB’s top executives. 

The two-page document circulated on WhatsApp.

Alongside the MSCB executives, the Enforcement Case Information Report names Sharad Pawar, Ajit Pawar, Diliprao Deshmukh, Ishwarlal Jain, Jayant Patil, Shivaji Rao Nalavade, Anand Rao Adsul, Rajendra Shingan and Madan Patil. 

However, the FIR filed by the Mumbai police, which Newslaundry accessed, does not name Pawar at all. 

Newslaundry also accessed the inspection, audit and inquiry reports prepared by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, or NABARD, the Cooperative Ministry of Maharashtra, and the Commissioner for Cooperation and Registrar of Cooperative Societies. The reports state that 77 members of the MSCB’s board of directors — including Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar and leaders of the NCP, Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party, Shiv Sena, and Peasants and Workers Party — were involved in the alleged scam. The majority of them belong to the NCP, about 80 per cent.

The bank’s executives allegedly sanctioned loans worth ₹1,100 crore and sold the MSCB property worth ₹25,000 crore at throwaway prices to 49 CSFs, “girnis”, and private institutions owned by their family, friends and other “connections”. The loans were given without adequate securities or guarantees.

This came to light in a 2009-10 audit report by NABARD which blamed the bank’s top executives for “wide-scale discrepancies”: records were forged, fudged profit figures were shown by violating the income recognition and asset clarification norms, non-performing asset accounts were faked, loans sanctioned to units in which the directors had personal stakes were not recorded. 

On the basis of NABARD’s audit, an inquiry was conducted under the Maharashtra Cooperative Society Act — and inspection, internal audit and inquiry reports were prepared. In June 2017, a chargesheet under the Cooperative Society Act was filed against the bank’s executives and directors as well as members of its loan sanction committee. 

In November 2011, a writ petition was filed by a citizen named Kakasaheb Bhosale. No action was taken on it. In January 2019, Surinder Arora, a social activist, filed a petition in the Mumbai High Court asking that an FIR be filed in the matter. After a hearing on August 22, the court directed the Economic Offences Wing of the police to file an FIR. 

Arora’s petition named Sharad Pawar. The FIR does not. A copy of the FIR can be accessed here.

It is curious that Arora’s petition is where Pawar’s name pops up. The inspection, audit and inquiry reports prepared until then named a number of politicians who were directors of the MSCB or members of its loan sanction committee, but not Sharad Pawar. Those named in the reports are Ajit Pawar, Manikrao Patil, DM Mohol, Prithviraj Deshmukh, Arvind Poreddwar, Madhav Rao Chavan, Nitin Patil, Rajni Patil, Usha Patil, Shailaja More, Babasaheb Vasave, Madhavrao Patil, Madhukar Patil, Vilasrao Patil, Rajendra Patil, NV Sarnaik,Gangadhar Kunturkar, Anandrao Chavan, Dattrataya Patil, Diliprao Patil, Ankush Pol, Babasaheb Basave, Dhananjay Dalal, Diliprao Deshmukh, Gulabrao Shelke, Jagganath Patil, Jayant Patil, Jitendrasing Rawal, ND Kamble, Nandkumar Dhote, Rajendra D Jain, Ravindra Shetye and  Kiran Deshmukh. 

Newslaundry asked Arora why he named Pawar in his petition. Arora’s involvement began when he heard about “irregularities” at the MSCB. He subsequently filed an RTI and obtained the reports from NABARD and the other agencies.

It’s a “multi-party scam” committed by “the NCP, Congress, BJP, Shiv Sena, and Peasants and Workers Party. Sharad Pawar is involved because he is the kingpin”, he replied by way of an explanation. “I have given my recorded statement on this. The ED is scrutinising the case and confidential documents have been handed over to them.”

Arora claimed BJP leader Nitin Gadkari was “equally involved”. “All these leaders are partners in crime. They helped each other in this scam. I’ve been approaching Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for the last five years about this but he did not take any action,” he claimed. “I even submitted these papers to the offices of Narendra Modi and Ravi Shankar Prasad, but there was no response.”

Not everyone is convinced of Pawar’s involvement, however. Newslaundry spoke to Vijay Kumbhar, an RTI activist who has exposed land-related scams of NCP leaders, including Ajit Pawar. Kumbhar said, “Pawar offered to go to the ED office after he was booked. But the ED refused to take his statement. It’s very strange for an investigation agency to book someone and then refuse to take his statement. Besides, that’s how his name came into the picture. How it was leaked to the media is a mystery.”

Kumbhar added, “I have always been at loggerheads [with Sharad Pawar] and I’m not saying he is innocent. But one shouldn’t be defamed without an investigation. There should be some clarity on how he was booked. The way this whole episode unfolded looks like a political stunt.” 

Newslaundry contacted Janak Wakankar, police sub-inspector at Mata Ramabai Ambedkar Marg police station, Mumbai, where the FIR was filed. Wakankar registered the FIR and was the investigating officer in the case. When asked to confirm that Sharad Pawar isn’t mentioned in the FIR, Wakankar said: “I don’t want to comment on the case.” 

The chain of events

September 24: ED registers case against Sharad Pawar, Ajit Pawar and others in a ₹25,000-crore scam related to the MSCB.

September 25: Pawar says he will present himself before the ED on September 27. The youth wing of the NCP protests outside the ED’s office. A bandh is called in Baramati. Protests take place in Pune and other cities. Chief Minister Fadnavis speaks at a function in Navi Mumbai and says his government played no role in the ED registering the case against Pawar. Fadnavis also says his party doesn’t believe in “political vendetta”. 

September 27: NCP workers organise a bandh in Pune, Ahmednagar, Satara, Akola, Hingoli, Solapur, Jalana and Nanded. The Mumbai police ask Pawar to cancel his visit to the ED’s office, citing law and order problems. Pawar complies and the bandh is called off. Ajit Pawar resigns as MLA.

September 28: Ajit Pawar calls a press conference in Mumbai, saying he resigned because his uncle Sharad Pawar was “defamed at this age because of me”.

According to political analyst Keshav Waghmare, this sequence of events was orchestrated by the BJP using the ED as their “political tool”. He also said it “boomeranged” on the BJP. 

“Pawar was never a member of the MSCB board of directors but he was still booked,” Waghmare said. “Pawar played out the whole situation brilliantly and pushed the BJP on to the backfoot. He offered to visit the ED after he was booked but the agency refused to take his statement. This raises questions on the ED’s role. The BJP is aware that the Congress is a useless Opposition in Maharashtra, but they’re worried about Pawar. So they did this political stunt which backfired.”

But Waghmare said Ajit Pawar “goofed up” by resigning. “This overshadowed the ED incident, and the media then began reporting on tensions within the Pawar family.”