M A I N   N E W S

Hindujas not to be detained
Decks cleared for appearance in Bofors case
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, Jan 10 — With the CBI asking the immigration authorities not to detain or arrest the Europe-based Hinduja brothers on their arrival in India, the decks for their appearance as accused in the Rs 64 crore Bofors pay-off case have been cleared. The designated court in the Capital has summoned them to appear on January 19.

Replying to applications filed by the Hindujas seeking the cancellation of the look out notices issued by the CBI in 1993, the agency said: “Immigration authorities have been instructed not to detain or arrest them on their arrival, so that they could appear before the court in obedience to the summons issued.”

The court had issued summonses to Mr S.P. Hinduja, Mr G.P. Hinduja and Mr P.P. Hinduja asking them to appear before it on January 19 after taking cognisance of the CBI charge sheet filed on October 9 last year.

The charge sheet alleged that they had received 81 million Swedish kroners from A B Bofors which bagged the Rs 1437 crore gun contract in 1986.

The Hindujas had sought the cancellation of the look out notices terming the same as “motivated and intended to harass and humiliate them.”

They had also sought permission to appear before the court on separate dates on the ground that their business, spread over four continents and employing over 25,000 people, might suffer if all of them were held up in court on a single date.

Following the CBI’s reply to their plea, the Judge said “let them appear before the court on January 19 and the remaining part of their prayers would heard on that day”.

The Hindujas, while expressing their willingness to appear before the court in pursuance of the summonses, had sought exemption from personal appearance in future.

Refuting the charges as “baseless, unfounded and unwarranted”, the CBI said the request for exemption from personal appearance “was uncalled for as the applicants in the first place are required to put in their appearance in pursuance of the summonses”.

However, the Hindujas had submitted that they wanted to appear before the court on their own volition despite the fact that the summonses were yet to be served on them.

The charge sheet against Hinduja brothers came almost a year after the first one filed by the CBI on October 22, 1999, naming Kuala Lumpur-based Italian businessman Quattrocchi, NRI businessman Win Chadha, former Defence Secretary S. K. Bhatnagar, then Bofors company chief Martin Ardbo and the company itself as accused.