Ajit Pawar
Credit: PTI Photo
A day after NCP leader Ajit Pawar took oath as the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, the Income Tax Department has cleared the properties worth Rs 1,000 crore associated with him and his family, in a benami case filed in 2021.
According to a NDTV report, the I-T department released the properties sealed after the Prevention of Benami Property Transactions Appellate Tribunal dismissed the charges against him and his family members in said case citing lack of sufficient evidence.
The tribunal said that the I-T department has failed to establish any link between the benami assets and the leader's family, and no properties under inspection were registered in Ajit Pawar's name.
"There is no evidence to suggest that Ajit Pawar or his family transferred funds to acquire benami properties...it's not that Ajit Pawar, Sunetra Pawar, and Parth Pawar transferred funds to procure benami properties," the publication cited the tribunal as saying.
Multiple locations linked to the NCP leader and his family members were raided and attached by the I-T department back in October 2021 in a case pertaining to benami transactions. The properties sealed by the department included multiple lands in Maharashtra, a flat in Delhi, Jarandeshwar Sugar Factory in Satara, and a resort in Goa.
Ajit Pawar, who was then with the undivided NCP, later broke away from the Sharad Pawar-led faction and joined the Maha Yuti government led by Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena last year. He was the deputy chief minister in he previous government and was sworn in again as the deputy CM in the new Devendra Fadnavis-led government on December 5.
Reacting to the new developments in the charges against him, Ajit Pawar said "When did I go with the BJP? It has been around 1.5 years. It is not always necessary to simply accept allegations. Everyone has the right to appeal."