Maharashtra's Anti-Corruption Bureau has absolved former Maharashtra water resource development minister Ajit Pawar in the multi-crore Vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation (VIDC) scam in a fresh affidavit filed on Thursday.

Current Mumbai police Commissioner Sanjay Barve, who was then the Maharashtra DGP, had on November 26, 2018, filed the first affidavit before the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court in response to a PIL filed by NGO Janmanch. In that affidavit, Barve has said: "It is observed that the minister in-charge of the water resources department shoves the responsibility on to the officers. In the Gosikhurd and Jigaon projects, Ajit Pawar had signed extension of tenders himself."