Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate‘s (ED) money laundering case in the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank scam against several politicians, including former ministers, effectively came to an end after a special court discharged all the accused in the case on Wednesday.Among those discharged from the money laundering case are former ministers Ranjeet Deshmukh, Arjun Khotkar, Rohit Pawar, Prajakt Tanpure, his father and multiple-term MLA and MP Prasad Tanpure, Subhash Deshmukh, their associate firms and Jarandeshwar Sugar Mills Pvt Ltd, which linked the late Ajit Pawar and his wife, Dy CM Sunetra Pawar, to the scam.The money laundering case collapsed as, earlier, special court judge Mahesh K Jadhav accepted the Mumbai police economic offences wing (EOW) closure report in the MSCB scam case that concluded that no fraud was committed in the bank. The ED case was based on the EOW FIR.The politically sensitive money laundering case investigation, which shaped the state’s political discourse for the last six years, also drew allegations of being used to pressure opposition leaders into switching sides.Police investigated whether cheating and forgery were committed in the MSCB while granting loans and in the auctioning of sick sugar mills to benefit senior politicians or their relatives, causing losses to the govt-control bank, and the agency gave a clean chit to all. The ED was mandated to investigate the proceeds of the crime generated from these transactions, in which it attached several properties linked to these politicians.In its order on Wednesday, the special court rejected special public prosecutor Sunil Gonsalves’ argument wjhile representing the ED that the “acceptance of closure report did not amount to an acquittal, discharge or quashing of proceeding” as mandated by the Supreme Court in the Vijay Choudhary case. According to the order, if in predicate offence someone gets acquitted, discharged or there is quashing of proceedings, then the money laundering case can not survive against him.The special court referred to the Bombay high court order in the Bhimrao Jadhav and Naresh Goel cases, where it was stated that accepting of ‘C’ summary amounts to an acquittal.The special court said “the competent court has accepted ‘C’ summary in the predicate offence, which as per the ratio laid down by hon’ble Bombay high court is amount to an acquittal”.The court said, per the ratio laid down in the Vijay Choudhary case, it was settled law that the offence under the PMLA Act could not be said as a standalone offence.Advocate Satya Prakash of JTG legal, appearing for four accused, including the Tanpures, said, “The court discharged all of them by accepting our applications. As there is no predicate offence, there is no money laundering.”Earlier the ED had opposed the EOW closure report in the case twice. When it was rejected the first time, the ED challenged the rejection in the Bombay high court, and the matter was still pending in the court.
