MUMBAI: Nearly five years after the Bombay High Court directed the registration of an FIR into alleged massive irregularities at the Maharashtra State Cooperative (MSC) Bank, a special court on Friday accepted the Economic Offences Wing’s C Summary report, formally closing the case in which several former directors of the bank were named.
The prosecution was set in motion after the high court, acting on a public interest litigation (PIL) that relied on inspection and audit findings, held that the material placed before it disclosed a cognisable offence and ordered the police to investigate.
The FIR that followed named more than 70 former directors and officials of the apex cooperative bank. It was alleged that large loans were extended to cooperative sugar factories and other units, which later turned non-performing assets. Subsequently, the assets of the defaulting sugar mills were sold to the near and dear ones of the directors at throwaway prices.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had conducted a money laundering investigation based on the EOW’s FIR, and in July 2025, a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court added the names of Nationalist Congress Party (SP) leader Rohit Pawar, his firm, Baramati Agro Limited, and Rajendra Ingawale as accused in the money laundering case pertaining to the auction sale of Kannad Sahakari Sugar Karkhana (SSK) by MSC Bank. All three were named in the supplementary charge-sheet filed by the ED in the case recently.
The EOW examined loan files, audit reports, valuation records, recovery proceedings and statements of bank officials and other stakeholders during the course of its probe. The case saw procedural shifts over the years, including earlier closure proceedings and renewed scrutiny, even as the ED initiated action under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act based on the same set of underlying transactions.
Upon completion of the investigation, the EOW filed a ‘C Summary’ report before the special court, stating that while the complaint was not false, the material collected did not disclose sufficient evidence to justify filing a charge-sheet. In criminal procedure, acceptance of a C Summary report signifies judicial agreement that the evidence does not warrant prosecution.
The closure report was opposed through multiple protest petitions filed by the original complainant and other applicants, who urged the court to reject the police findings, order further investigation or independently take cognisance. However, in its operative order, the special court rejected all protest petitions, accepted the C Summary in the connected miscellaneous applications and passed no order as to costs.
With that acceptance, the court declined to direct further investigation or to proceed against the persons named in the FIR. With this, the criminal proceedings arising from the 2019 FIR stand terminated at the trial court level, subject to any challenge before the high court.