NEW DELHI, June 23: A Delhi court today reserved till tomorrow its verdict on the anticipatory bail application moved by the chairman of Bennet and Coleman company, Ashok Jain.

Earlier, Additional District and Sessions Judge N K Goyal, asked the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to file a reply by tomorrow to Jain's application. The media baron is apprehending arrest in an alleged FERA violation case being probed by the ED.

Jain's lead counsel, K K Sud, submitted that Jain was ready to be interrogated in the Indraprastha Apollo hospital, where he is reportedly undergoing treatment for a heart ailment. Sud added that there would be no lawyers, attendants or doctors during the session.

However, the prosecution submitted that the interrogation be done in the ED headquarters since there were a number of sensitive documents which had to be shown to Jain and none of those could be taken out of the office.

The counsel, which also includes R K Handoo and K K Sareen, contended that the ED was trying to harass the applicant in a case dating back to 1977 in which the investigation was already completed.

But counsel for the ED, Madan Lokur and Naveen Kumar Matta, sought time to file reply to the application since, they said, that the notice was served on the department only at 10:30 am today. They contended that the allegations against Jain were of a serious nature and that he had not been cooperating with the investigations despite a high court order.

Meanwhile, Deputy Director (Enforcement) Ashok Aggarwal told the court ``Jain has the habit of getting admitted to the hospital whenever the directorate served summons on him for questioning.''

Aggarwal said that despite 13 summons being served since January 4, 1997, Jain had not responded to even one.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.