CBI apprehension baseless -- Hindujas
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

NEW DELHI, FEB 14: Pressing for permission from the Delhi high court to go out of India, the Hinduja brothers today said CBI's apprehension that they would run away from the Bofors payoff case trial was "baseless" and assured that in future they would appear before the designated court during the proceedings in the case.

Counsel for London-based S P Hinduja and G P Hinduja and Geneva-based P P Hinduja contended before Justice S K Agarwal that CBI's apprehension was an "excuse" as the brothers had appeared voluntarily before the trial court on January 19 without even receiving the summons.

The arguments remained inconclusive and the court, after hearing Hindujas' counsel Kapil Sibal and Rajinder Singh for over an hour, adjourned hearing till February 26.

"It is an idle apprehension on the part of CBI that the three brothers will run away from trial. They (CBI) are airing this apprehension only as an excuse," Sibal contended.

The CBI's so-called apprehension about their running away from the trial "is a future apprehension" which had no basis keeping in view the fact that the brothers chose to appear before the trial court "voluntarily without receiving any summons", the counsel said.

They apprehended that the trial in this case might not start for years as CBI has not succeeded in extraditing other foreign-based accused Ottavio Quattrocchi and Martin Ardbo from Kuala Lumpur and Sweden.

The counsel said the brothers were suffering enormous loss in their global business due to their long absence from the headquarters.

Hindujas' counsel said by denying them permission to go out of the coutry, the trial court in fact had "curtailed" its own order granting them bail.

"Bail conditions cannot curtail the liberty of an accused altogether. But the condition in the bail order that Hindujas will not leave the country without the court's permission is so prohibitory that it amounts to denying them bail," Sibal and Singh argued.

"The court must exploit its own genius to see what type of conditions have to be imposed to ensure their presence in the court but not deny them permission to go back, attend to their business and meet their families", they contended.

Pleading that the Hindujas should be allowed to go back to US and Switzerland, their counsel said it could test the "bonafide" of their commitments to appear in the trial court on March 19.

CBI, in its affidavit, said its apprehension was based on the fact that after the Swiss authorities transmitted the Bofors documents to India in December, 1999 Hindujas stopped coming here after July in that year.

"This further strengthens the apprehension that they may choose not to come to India, whenever they decide," it said.

Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.