The Prevention of Benami Property Transactions Appellate Tribunal dismissed the benami property ownership charges against Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and his family on Friday, CNBC-TV18 reported.
Following the ruling, the Income Tax department released the properties worth Rs 1,000 crore that had been seized in the 2021 benami transactions case, India Today reported.
This came a day after Ajit Pawar was sworn-in as the deputy chief minister of the recently-elected Mahayuti government.
The tribunal dismissed the 2021 case that linked the properties to Ajit Pawar and his family under benami ownership, on the basis of insufficient evidence, NDTV reported.
The Income Tax department had raided several locations linked to the Nationalist Congress Party leader and his family on October 7, 2021, including a sugar factory in Satara, a flat in Delhi, a resort in Goa and several land parcels across Maharashtra. These properties were eventually attached.
At the time, Ajit Pawar was part of the undivided Nationalist Congress Party and the deputy chief minister in the Maha Vikas Aghadi government that collapsed in June 2022.
He has been the deputy chief minister since July 2023, when a party faction led by him joined the Mahayuti government comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party and Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena group.
The tribunal on Friday rejected the benami transaction claims, saying that the allegations lacked sufficient evidence. “It’s not that Ajit Pawar, [wife] Sunetra Pawar, and [son] Parth Pawar transferred funds to procure benami properties,” the tribunal ruled.
Ajit Pawar’s legal counsel had argued that all property transactions had been carried out through legitimate channels and that there were no irregularities in the records, CNBC-TV18 reported.
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