Manu Chhabria Refuses To Appear Before Ed Again
Manohar Rajaram Chhabria, the Dubai-based chairman of Shaw Wallace & Co, has refused for the second time to honour the enforcement directorate's (ED) summons to testify in the Rs 80-crore Fera violation case.
Chhabria was asked to appear before the ED on April 2 for interrogations, about three months after the first summons were issued following the country-wide crackdown on Shaw Wallace premises. Last month, the Union law ministry had given the ED the green signal to issue further summons to the elusive Chhabria.
According to a source, Chhabria, in his reply to the ED summons, maintained his earlier stand that being a non-resident Indian he is not bound by Indian laws to appear before the officials.
Sources feel Chhabria's non-compliance is the greatest stumbling block to the investigations. The ED is yet to fix the date for summoning him.
The source said another option before the ED is to file a case in a court of law in the country. This court in turn, can write to the judicial authorities in Dubai to direct Chhabria to honour the ED's summons.
However, the source feels Chhabria may go scot free as some of the Fera violations in India are not seen as an economic offence in Dubai. It would have been easier if Dubai had been a signatory to the double taxation avoidance agreement which India has with 85 other countries.
While ED sleuths have collected enough evidence to prove that money was siphoned off from the country via dubious channels, they need to corroborate their findings with recorded statements from Manu Chhabria and his younger brother, Kishore Chhabria - having served as the firm's managing directors during the four years under review - and his Mumbai-based brother-in-law Niranjan Thakur.
The directorate recently asked a Mumbai branch of the IndusInd Bank to furnish details of transactions made by SWC. These investigations are believed to be a continuation of those carried out in relation with the consortium banks led by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation last year.