Ed May Seek Cancellation Of Chhabria'S Passport

The enforcement directorate(ED) would be seeking the cancellation of Manu Chhabria passport if Chhabria ignores the third summon notice issued to him on April 11, 1997.

However, officials in the enforcemnet directorate do not rule out a last minute decision to send a fourth summon notice to Chhabria before seeking for the cancellation of his passport.

This would strengthen the ED's case against him if the case moves up to the courts. Manu Chhabria, the Dubai-based chairman of Shaw Wallace, is being summoned by the ED in connection with foreign exchange violation charges of over Rs 80 crore committed by his group of companies.

Speaking to Business Standard, senior officials from the ED said that cancellation of Chhabria passport would be sought by the directorate if Chhabria continues with his policy of non-response to the summon notices.

Chhabria had been earlier sent two summon notices to which he refused to respond.

The second notice to him was dispatched on April 2 this month. However, Chhabria informed the directorate that being a non-resident Indian, he was not bound by the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA).

However, the directorate has already received clearance from the ministry of law to proceed with its investigations against Chhabria since any non-resident Indian is adequately covered by the FERA.

The directorate had also sought legal advice from the attorney general in this issue.

The directorate has alleged that over Rs 80 crore had been illegally siphoned from Shaw Wallace, the Calcutta-based company chaired by Manu Chhabria.

ED officials need to record Manu Chhabria statements in order to corroborate its findings in the alleged FERA violation case.

Statements would also be taken from Kishore Chhabria, Manu's brother, who served as the company's managing director during the four years under review, and Niranjan Thakur, his brother-in-law.

The Mumbai branch of the IndusInd bank had been recently approached by the directorate to furnish details of the transactions made by Shaw Wallace during the period under review.

According to officials, the directorate has already collected sufficient evidence in support of its charges.