Apart from sticking to its core objective of promoting marketing and storage of agricultural produce, state-run National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (Nafed) has also learnt the “art” of making money. It has just made a windfall by selling 25 MF Hussain paintings for Rs 68.5 crore.
A host of high-networth individuals bought the prized pieces of art from Nafed, which has been waging a long legal battle for ownership and sales rights of the prized pieces of art.
Apart from the delayed legal victory, an unexpected boon for the farm cooperative was that the transactions closely followed a record-breaking sale of Husain’s Untitled (Gram Yatra) at a Christie’s auction in New York in March this year for over Rs 118 crore. The auction has helped artist’s works jump in value.
To be sure, in May last year, the Nafed paintings were valued at Rs 25 crore by art specialist Dadiba Pundole in a submission to the Bombay High Court.
In that sense, a delay in the auction actually helped Nafed get a better deal. Kishore Singh, art writer, curator and the author of a book on Husain, said: “Husain’s market required a trigger, which it got from the Christie’s sale. That was a validation of Husain’s market that had been underserved for a while, and a certain course correction was, of course, overdue.”
In February 2025, the High Court permitted the sheriff of Mumbai, to carry out e-auction of the 25 paintings, which were seized by Nafed nearly two decades ago in connection with a Rs 236 crore loan dispute with Guru Swarup Srivastava of Mumbai-based Swarup Group Industries. These loans were among a host of non-performing assets of the farmer’s federation.
Nafed, in 2004, became guarantor to the assorted banks’ loans taken by Swarup Group for certain non-farm businesses. The group defaulted on loan repayment; Srivastava subsequently “purchased” the Husain paintings, and offered these as collateral among some other assets.
However, as Nafed, which itself was facing mounting losses from its failed non-core business, sought to monetise the paintings, legal issues cropped up. Srivastava refused to transfer the ownership rights of the artwork and moved the HC against Nafed’s attempts to seize it.
In February 2025, the HC permitted the sheriff of Mumbai, to carry out e-auction of the prized art, on behalf of Nafed.
A Nafed official said along with the paintings, 22 shops at a Navi Mumbai mall of Swarup industries have also been sold.
In an earlier auction in January, 2023, a sprawling Lawrence Road property of the farmers federation, which specialises in oilseeds and pulses procurement on behalf of agriculture ministry, was sold by Nafed at Rs 137.75 crore, whose proceeds as per the one time settlement (OTS), were paid to Central Bank Of India.
With the sale of MF Hussain paintings and shops, Nafed has completed its obligation towards the OTS, the sources added.
On March 27, 2018, Nafed had signed the debt settlement deed with its eight lender banks for OTS of its dues at Rs 478 crore which included cash payment of Rs 220 crore and assignment of sale rights of one of its prime properties located in Delhi. OTS was worked out with the recommendation of an inter-ministerial committee consisting of officials from the department of agriculture, finance, expenditure and Nafed.
The cooperative provided financial support of Rs 3,945 crore to 62 private parties for trading in non-agri items between 2004 and 2006, and of this, many turned defaulters. Such defaults had reached a level, forcing banks to declare Nafed’s account as non-performing assets.
Of course, over the years, Nafed recovered, and reported a sales turnover of Rs 26,946 crore for 2024–25, and a record net profit of Rs 565 crore.