Enforcement Directorate issues summons to NCP MLA Rohit Pawar for questioning

Rohit Pawar. File pic

The Enforcement Directorate has summoned Maharashtra MLA Rohit Pawar, a grandnephew of NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, for questioning on January 24 as part of its money laundering probe into the alleged Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB) scam, official sources said Friday.

The federal agency had raided the premises of Baramati Agro, a company owned by Rohit Pawar, and some linked entities on January 5 in Baramati, Pune, Aurangabad and some other locations.

Rohit Pawar, 38, is a first-time NCP MLA from the Karjat-Jamkhed seat in the Maharashtra assembly and is the owner and CEO of Baramati Agro.

He belongs to the Sharad Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

Rohit Pawar is the nephew of Baramati MP Supriya Sule, and the state's deputy chief minister and Baramati MLA Ajit Pawar.

The Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank money laundering case stems from an August 2019 FIR of the Mumbai Police's Economic Offences Wing.

Reacting to the raids, the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar Group) had said Rohit Pawar's 'Yuva Sangharsh Yatra' had "hit a nerve" and made the BJP insecure.

The ED probe against his firm pertains to allegations of "diversion" of funds and deposit of earnest funds of a company that bid for the purchase of a Maharashtra-based ailing cooperative sugar factory, sources had said.

Meanwhile, Uddhav Thackeray faction leader and Mumbai ex-mayor Kishori Pednekar has also been summoned before the Enforcement Directorate on January 25 in connection with the COVID body bag scam case.

Earlier in November last year, ED summoned the former Mumbai Mayor in connection with the COVID body bag scam case.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) investigations claimed that a company was giving body bags for dead Covid patients to another company for Rs 2,000. That company was giving the same body bags to the Central Procurement Department for Rs 6,800 and this contract was signed by the then-BMC mayor and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader, Kishori Pednekar.

A case was also registered by the Mumbai police against Pednekar.

Earlier, Mumbai Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) summoned the former Deputy Commissioner of the BMC's Central Purchase Department (CPD), Ramakant Biradar, to probe into the allegations of irregularities involved in purchasing body bags for deceased COVID-19 patients.

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