MUMBAI, April 23 -- A special court for Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) cases on Wednesday closed the case related to the alleged multi-crore fraud at Maharashtra State Co-operative (MSC) Bank and discharged all 17 accused, including NCP (SP) leaders Rohit Pawar, Prajakt Tanpure, his father Prasad Tanpure, former Maharashtra Congress chief Ranjit Deshmukh, and Shiv Sena leader Arjun Khotkar, all of whom were booked by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). Special judge Mahesh Jadhav discharged all the accused primarily because the sessions court had, in February, closed the predicate case, registered by the Mumbai police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW). The MSC Bank fraud, worth around Rs.25,000 crore, involves allegations of illegal loans, fraudulent sales of sugar cooperatives to politicians or their kint. The Bombay High Court had, in August 2019, ordered the Mumbai police to register an FIR based on a complaint filed by activist Surinder Mohan Arora, , who alleged that the bank had extended large loans to sugar cooperatives and other units that later became non-performing assets. Accordingly, the MRA Marg police station registered an FIR naming around 72 directors of MSC Bank and entrusted the investigation to the EOW. A year later, the EOW filed a C Summary report or a closure report indicating a case is neither truly false nor entirely true. The sessions court accepted this report on February 27, 2026, and closed the predicate offence, which prompted all the accused to file discharge pleas. The ED had opposed all the applications, contending that it had filed an intervention application in October 2020 opposing the EOW's closure report, and had since approached the high court after the sessions court rejected its plea. The agency's counsel argued that the situation could be reversed if the high court allows its plea. On Wednesday, special judge Mahesh Jadhav allowed all the discharge applications, observing that no action under PMLA can be taken without a sustaining predicate or scheduled offence existing against the person concerned. "The closure reports accepted by the competent court having jurisdiction in the predicate offence amounts to an acquittal," the court said. "There being no predicate offence, i.e. scheduled offence, the impugned ECIR registered by the ED will not survive."...