NCP lawmaker Rohit Pawar turns up at Mumbai ED office for questioning again

On Thursday, Rohit turned up at the federal agency’s south Mumbai office at around 1 pm, accompanied by his wife, Kunti, and Sharad Pawar’s granddaughter Revati Sule

MUMBAI: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) legislator and party chief Sharad Pawar’s grandnephew Rohit Pawar on Thursday appeared before Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials in connection with its money laundering probe related to the alleged Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB) scam.

NCP legislator Rohit Pawar (in dark jacket) arrives at ED office, accompanied by Supriya Sule’s daughter Revati Sule (left) and his wife Kunti Pawar (right) (HT Photo/Bhushan Koyande)

This is the second time in 10 days that the 38-year-old lawmaker is being questioned by ED. He was last grilled by ED officials for over 11 hours on January 24.

On Thursday, Rohit turned up at the federal agency’s south Mumbai office at around 1 pm, accompanied by his wife, Kunti, and Sharad Pawar’s granddaughter Revati Sule, among others. News agency PTI said Sharad Pawar’s wife Pratibha Pawar was at the NCP office nearby. When Rohit appeared before ED on January 24, Sharad Pawar had spent nearly 12 hours at the party office waiting for him to be released.

NCP founder Sharad Pawar and his daughter Supriya Sule are in New Delhi for Parliament session. Like last week, a large number of NCP workers were also present at the party office in solidarity with Rohit Pawar.

The summons followed searches conducted by ED on January 5 at around six locations in cities including Pune, Pimpri Chinchwad, Aurangabad, and Baramati in the state on the premises of persons associated with Hitech Engineering Corporation India Private Limited, Samruddhi Sugar Private Limited and Baramati Agro Private Limited (BAPL) headed by Rohit Pawar.

The ED probe is related to the alleged rigged auction of an Aurangabad-based sugar mill in 2012 and the suspected diversion of bank funds allegedly by BAPL and two other firms.

BAPL is accused of funding an accused co-bidder for complying with the requirement of submitting an Earnest Money Deposit of Rs.5 crore to participate in the auction, according to the ED officials.

Rohit, who represents the Karjat-Jamkhed assembly constituency, is currently the chief executive officer at BAPL.

According to ED, the BAPL, along with now-defunct Hitech Engineering Corporation India Pvt Ltd, and Samruddhi Sugar Pvt Ltd participated in the auction of the Aurangabad-based cooperative sugar factory, Kannad SSK, in October-November 2012. Kannad SSK was eventually purchased by BAPL allegedly for around Rs.50 crore in the auction.

The probe is based on a first information report (FIR) registered by Mumbai police’s Economic Offence Wing (EOW) on August 26, 2019.

According to ED, Hitech Engineering allegedly received an amount of Rs.5 crore from Baramati Agro, which it used days later as EMD to participate in the auction of Kannad SSK. Kannad SSK, which had taken loans from the MSCB, was sold through the auction by the bank under the SARFAESI (Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest) Act.