CBI gives clean chit to Ajit Pawar linked bank

The Central Bureau of Investigation has closed a complaint of unaccounted demonetised currency of over Rs 550 crore deposited in the accounts of the Pune District Credit Cooperative (PDCC) bank where former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar is a director.

The two-year-long case was closed for want of evidence. “We first studied accounts with deposits of Rs 1 crore or close but when we didn’t find such high-value deposits, we looked into deposits of Rs 10 lakh and then narrowed it down to Rs 1 lakh. But we couldn’t find any accounts having deposits of unaccounted demonetised currencies,” said a senior official in the know of the matter. “Once we were satisfied that there was no evidence to prove that unaccounted cash was laundered into the accounts, the case was closed.”

When contacted, PDCC general manager Prataprao Chavan confirmed being probed by the CBI.


“The agency wanted to verify the credits in the accounts, if the KYC were verified and what were the sources of these deposits. We have been able to provide all the information sought by the agency The same was communicated to the RBI,” he said. “The CBI never questioned Pawar or any other senior official of the bank.”

The bank was probed by other central agencies, including the CBI, Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the income tax. Queries emailed by ET to the CBI remained unanswered till late Friday.

After the government declared Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes illegal in November 2016, the federal anti-corruption agency received inputs from various intelligence agencies, primarily the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), flaggingsuspicious transactions.

One such input was against PDCC. “The input stated that the bank had received unaccounted demonetised currency of over Rs 550 crore. A probe was launched based on this,” said an officer familiar with the development, requesting anonymity.