Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB) is always hot copy for the media. This time round the bank has gone out of its way defending the state deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar whose name figures in a petition before the Bombay high court seeking registration of FIR in a scam involving a largescale diversion of funds of the bank.
MSCB has told the high court that Mr Ajit Pawar’s name is being mentioned to gain cheap publicity.
One Mr Shankarao Bhosale from Satara has filed the controversial petition.
Mr Bhosale states depite the appointment of a board of administrators on the advice of RBI, the board has done nothing to recover defaulted loans and therefore urges the court to direct them to start criminal proceedings with the economic offences wing.
MSCB has told the court that the petitioner who is vice-president of a sugar factory has taken loans from the bank and has been defaulting on them. The petitioner is therefore only blackmailing the bank and hiding his own illegalities.
The petioner, however, maintains Mr Ajit Pawar’s followers and associates who are also members of the NCP have availed themselves of crores of rupees of loans from the bank and are not willing to repay these loans.
It is no secret that Mr Pawar and his followers have decisively been dominant over the years in the management board of MSCB.