MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) attached assets worth Rs 78.4 crore, including an over-200-acre land parcel of the sugar mill Jalna Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana Ltd controlled by former Shiv Sena minister Arjun Khotkar in Jalna district, in the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB) money laundering case.
The sugar mill had defaulted on payment of loan taken from the MSCB, after which it was sold at half the price to relatives and associates of a former office-bearer of the mill without following due process under the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest (SARFAESI) Act.
The MSCB scam pertains to loans that many cooperative sugar mills took from the bank and subsequently defaulted on. The MSCB auctioned such mills to recover its dues. The ED alleged that the auction process was not transparent and these mills were sold to relatives, close associates of the bank and the office-bearers of the mills. Many state ministers and politicians who were holding positions in the mills or on the board of the bank are under the ED scanner in the case.
The ED said that the Jalna sugar mill along with 235 acres of land located in Jalna was sold to Arjun Sugar Industries Pvt Ltd, a company incorporated by Khotkar and others only to purchase the mill in 2012.
The mill was established in 1984 on around 235 acres of land, including 100 acres of land received without any monetary consideration from the state government. It is alleged that the mill failed to repay the loan overdue of Rs 33.5 crore to the MSCB.
