1995 Urea scam: Court rejects accused's plea to transfer case

Alankus, the executive of scam-tainted Turkish firm Karsan, had sought transfer of Rs 13.3 million Urea scam case to another court saying he had "lost faith" in the CBI court, but District and Sessions Judge Sunita Gupta rejected his plea.

Alankus had sought transfer of the case after the CBI court refused to grant him more time for furnishing details of defence witnesses.

Dismissing Alankus' plea, the district judge said, "Merely because the presiding officer has given some direction to the applicant in respect of examination of his defence witness - may be just to ensure expeditious disposal of the case which is quite old.... That would not mean the presiding officer has conducted the proceedings in a biased frame of mind against the applicant."

Tuncay's counsel had told the district judge that as the case was fixed for defence evidence, an application was moved by them in March along with list of witnesses and their complete details for issuing summons to them.

He said in June, they filed in the court the photocopies of letters written to witnesses seeking their willingness to appear via video conferencing and told the court that their replies were awaited but the CBI judge asked him to intimate the witnesses about the time schedule of the Indian court and obtain their willingness to appear before it.

He said on July 24 his plea for two months' time for furnishing the details of the witnesses was also refused by the court. (More)