Urea scam -- SC rejects bail plea of Karsan officials

Urea scam -- SC rejects bail plea of Karsan officials
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

NEW DELHI, AUG 11: The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the bail plea of Tuncay Alankus and Cihan Karanci, officials of Turkish firm Karsan Ltd, which failed to deliver two lakh metric tonnes of urea despite taking Rs 133 crore in advance from National Fertiliser Ltd (NFL) in 1996.

A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice A S Anand after hearing brief arguments from the accused, who were extradited to India from Switzerland in 1997, rejected the bail plea.

Counsel for the accused said that the two officials of the Turkish firm were charged under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which carried a maximum punishment of seven years imprisonment and added these two have already undergone imprisonment of four years since their arrest in 1996.

The counsel said going by the number of witnesses to be examined, the trial could take a number of years.

Justice Anand, perusing the files, said most of the delaywas caused due to the challenge made by the accused against the framing of charge in the Delhi High Court and observed "If you challenge the orders of the trial court at every stage it will take time."

Additional Solcitor General R N Trivedi with K Parasaran appeared for the CBI and said the extradition proceedings went on in Geneva for almost a year and the Delhi High Court had summoned the files of the case during the hearing of the plea of the accused during July 1999 and March 2000.