NEW DELHI, July 11: ITC chairman Y C Deveshwar, nominees of financial institutions (FIs) and its parent company BAT are among 20 present and former directors and top executives who have been charge-sheeted by the Enforcement Directorate for FERA violation of $ 114 million.

The directorate issued charge-sheets late on Friday evening to Deveshwar, former chairman K L Chugh, BAT nominees Norman Davis and Richard Pilbeam, FI nominees P V Narasimhan, K P Narasimhan and H C Sharma, present and former executive directors Saurabh Misra, R P Aggarwal, B Mitter, N Sitaraman, G K P Reddy, R K Kutty, F R Vevaina and senior executives E Ravindranath, M B Rao, K K Rao, K Vaidyanath, N Laxminarayanan and S K Agarwal.

Of the five charge-sheets issued by the directorate to the company, its directors and top executives, four spell out violations of retaining export proceeds abroad and, one to transfer and lending of foreign exchange to ITC's estranged trading partners, Chitalias. The charge-sheets pertain to violations of Sections 8, 9, 18 and 68 of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1973.

The accused have been given 30 days to reply to the show-cause notices. The directors of the company have been charged under Section 68 (1) and (2) under which that every person on the board of directors is deemed to be guilty till such time he proves that he exercised due diligence to prevent such a contravention, or the contravention took place without their knowledge.

The charge-sheets have been issued by the directorate's headquarters in Delhi.Adjudication proceedings will start only after all the replies have been evaluated. Sources said six to seven charge-sheets would be issued later.

The ED had taken legal opinion before issuing charge-sheets to the BAT nominees and FI nominees since they were part-time directors.

The role of the Financial Institutions nominees on the boards of companies would be under scrutiny with the issue of charge-sheets.

During the course of investigations, the directorate searched around 40 premises all over the country and collected crucial evidence from the US and Singapore.

The violations relate to the company's transactions, mainly export of agricultural commodities, between 1991 and 1996. The directorate is speeding up investigations in other crucial cases.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.