Dnyaneshwar Agashe

Early life, education, and family: 1942–1967

Agashe was born in Pune, Bombay Presidency on 17 April 1942, into a Chitpavan brahmin family of industrialist Chandrashekhar Agashe and wife Indirabai Agashe (née Dwarka Gokhale). His father was a member of the aristocratic Agashe gharana of the village of Mangdari in the Bhor State. He was the third youngest of nine siblings who survived to adulthood. He had an older brother, Panditrao Agashe, and an older sister, Shakuntala Karandikar. His fraternal twin, Mukta, died a few months after birth. His sisters nicknamed him Shirin, as a child.

Agashe's mother was the daughter of Narayan Gokhale VI from the aristocratic Gokhale gharana of Dharwad. She was a great niece of Bapu Gokhale, a Third Anglo-Maratha War general under Peshwa Baji Rao II of the Maratha Empire. Through her, Agashe was a distant relation of musician Ashutosh Phatak, historian Dinkar G. Kelkar, and scientist P. K. Kelkar.

Agashe grew up between Pune, Shreepur, and Mangdari. He and his siblings were in Mangdari during the anti-Brahmin riots that followed Gandhi's assassination in 1948. The family's wada, called Chausopi, along with the family's Ram temple was burned down. He began his schooling at the Nutan Marathi Vidyalaya in Pune. In the fifth grade, he transferred to the Deccan Education Society's Raman Baug High School in Pune. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Sir Parshurambhau College in 1964. After briefly considering law at ILS Law College, he further graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce.

Agashe married Rekha Gogte in 1967, a niece of industrialist B. M. Gogte. A member of the Gogte gharana of Belgaum, she was also a descendant of the aristocratic Latey (Bhagwat) family. Through her, Agashe was a relation of Kokuyo Camlin head Dilip Dandekar, and academic Jyoti Gogte. The couple had three children, sons Mandar and Ashutosh, and daughter Sheetal.

Career in cricket: 1955–1968

While at Raman Baug High School, Agashe took an interest in cricket, field hockey, football, and badminton. Under the guidance of his school's sports coach Rambhau Lele, he began playing hockey as a center-forward. His batting style has been described as a right-hand bat.

Known for his unorthodox batting with lofted shots, Agashe was a part of his school's cricket team which won the Sethna Cup and the Pudumjee Shield against Shri Shivaji Preparatory Military School. Between 1955 and 1957, he was selected for the Pune district cricket team and then for the Maharashtra cricket team to play the Cooch Behar Trophy. He further sought training at the National Defense Academy before being selected as a wicket-keeper-batsman for the West Zone cricket team. While a West Zone player, his performance in the matches in Calcutta got him selected for the Indian Universities cricket team to tour Sri Lanka.

Between 1962 and 1968, Agashe played first-class cricket for the Maharashtra cricket team as a wicket-keeper-batsman, and scored two half-centuries in 13 matches. He played his best season in 1964–65 where he made his career-best 75, took ten catches and made two stumpings, and was credited for Maharashtra's victory against the Nari Contractor captained Gujarat cricket team in the 1964 season. His teammates at the time were Chandu Borde, Sadanand Mohol, and Hemant Kanitkar. During the same season, he was a wicket-keeper for the Indian universities team against the Sri Lankan cricket team.

Expanding roles in business, cricket administration, and philanthropy: 1978–1990

In 1978, Agashe became the sole managing director of the Brihan Maharashtra Sugar Syndicate upon his brother's retirement from the office. In 1979, he was the credited printer for the book संस्कृतीच्या मळवाटा (lit. 'The Filth of Culture'), a critique of Hindu culture by C. P. Bhishikar. In 1983, he was the credited printer for M. A. Bhagwat's letters on the history of Marathi theatre at the Balmohan Vidyamandir, and by 1984, he was on the editorial board of the Solapur chapter of the Maharashtra Sahitya Parishad. By 1985, Agashe worked as a promoter for several cricket matches and tournaments within India, as well as in the United Kingdom and the Middle East. In January 1986, he interviewed S. L. Kirloskar for the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture.

Agashe donated to the Maharashtra Vidya Mandal after his brother Panditrao's death in November 1986, after whom the Panditrao Agashe School was named. He also founded the Chandrashekhar Agashe High School, Chandrashekhar Agashe Junior College and Indirabai Agashe High School on the family's estate in the town of Shreepur, Maharashtra. In 1987, Agashe was part of the inquiry made by Shankarrao Chavan about Sharad Pawar's foreign assets. That same year, during the 1987 Cricket World Cup, while serving as secretary for the Maharashtra Cricket Association, he predicted a low turn out for the match between Sri Lanka and England.

Agashe served as chairman to Kolhapur Steel, after the syndicate had begun work in metal printing under his brother in the early 1980s. He started a unit in Canada for Taj Rum by the late 1980s. He diversified the syndicate into pharmaceuticals, power generation, publication (with Mandar Printing Press), and real estate by the early 1990s. In November 1986, he was one of the shareholders named in the lawsuit against the Sakal Media Group filed by the heirs of Nanasaheb Parulekar. In 1987, he was one of the managers for the Indian cricket team's tour of the United Kingdom. In 1988, he also represented the interests of private sugar companies when the Government of Maharashtra promoted the nationalisation of sugar factories, and was serving as president of the Deccan Sugar Factory Association by that same year. In 1989, he was elected to the post of executive chairman for the Maharashtra Cricket Association. That same year, he was listed as a director for Sakal Papers.

Suvarna Sahakari Bank scam allegations: 2006–2009

By September 2006, the Suvarna Sahakari Bank started having financial troubles. Various sources alleged that the bank's failure, along with the failure of the Brihan Maharashtra Sugar Syndicate in allegedly not being able to hire factory or farm workers at the time, was a result of Agashe's failure to get Pawar elected to the presidency of the Board of Control for Cricket in India back in 2004, in a then Nationalist Congress Party-controlled Maharashtra. Later that same month, the cooperative bank was put under moratorium by the Reserve Bank of India, after which Cosmos Bank announced plans to acquire the bank.

In June 2007, Hotel Ranjeet, a hotel owned by Agashe was auctioned off in order to pay off the loans due, which was followed by the sale of Agashe's majority stake in The Kolhapur Steel Ltd., a steel foundry in Kolhapur, to the Kirloskar Brothers in September 2007. In February 2008, following the order of moratorium, many of the bank's depositors held demonstrations at Agashe's Aundh residence and threatened criminal actions against the Agashe family. In May 2008, Agashe mortgaged personal property worth ₹200 crore in lieu of the recovery of the deposits worth ₹725 crore.

On 22 November 2008, Agashe, along with fourteen other board members, was taken into judicial custody, and the bank business was charged with a ₹436.74 crore scam allegation. The arrest warrant stated that the accused, along with six others, allegedly misused their rights and sanctioned loans mostly to firms owned by themselves and then defaulted the loans, thereby duping the bank's depositors. The judicial magistrate remanded Agashe and the fourteen other suspects to police custody, with provisions of medical assistance if required, citing the senior citizenship of a majority of the accused.

Following the arrests in late November 2008, the economic offences wing of the crime branch conducted a raid of Agashe's Aundh residence. The recovered evidence was used by the prosecution to further allege that Agashe and the others defendants had disbursed loans in a manner of conflict of interest as per Reserve Bank of India regulations, to which Agashe's defence counsel contended that the loans had been sanctioned by the bank's disbursement committee, a committee Agashe was not a member of. The defence also claimed that Agashe and his family had sold off various properties for the repayment of the loan, had extended their full cooperation with the police, and further submitted that the loan would be paid off after the bank's merger was settled. The defence also raised the issue of foul play, when the first information reporting of the allegations was not produced before the court three days after registering the case. The bail applications filed at the time for Agashe, his wife, and his sister were subsequently rejected.