ED attaches assets of Rohit R. Pawar, NCP-SP leader says will challenge action in court

Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday attached lands and properties worth over Rs 50 crore belonging to Nationalist Congress Party-SP MLA Rohit R. Pawar in a money-laundering case.

The assets include 161.30 acres of land, plus a sugar plant, machinery, and buildings at Kannad, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, owned by Baramati Agro Ltd, headed by Rohit R. Pawar, the grand-nephew of NCP-SP President Sharad Pawar.

The attachments were made in an alleged money-laundering case pertaining to the illegal sale of sugar factories by the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank to Baramati Agro Ltd., of which Rohit R. Pawar is the CEO.

The assets have been provisionally attached under a Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case which the ED has been probing against the Karjat-Jamkhed MLA.

Rohit R. Pawar said that after he read about the ED action, he thought: "Should I join the BJP now?” while deciding to challenge it legally.

He said that those who dream of bringing a self-respecting person like him to the knees can keep dreaming, as the ED action is completely illegal and he would move the court against it.

"The question is: why is such action taken only against me? But no point asking this today to the abusers of power. One such agency took action against me on my birthday, and now another action on Mahashivratri Day. I am a devotee of Mahadev, and when he opens his ‘third eye’ against injustice, many will be shocked,” declared Rohit R. Pawar.

In January and February, the ED had subjected Rohit R. Pawar to intensive grilling in several sessions and is likely to summon him again for the probe into the matter, even as the NCP-SP cried foul and alleged selective political vendetta against Opposition parties' leaders by the government.

In the past, the ED has provisionally attached some other assets worth more than Rs 120 crore in the case originally filed by the Mumbai Police's Economic Offences Wing in 2019.