Chhabria Fails To Appear Before Magistrate

The investigations carried out by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on the Shaw Wallace case drag on as the company's non-resident chairman Manohar Rajaram Chhabria failed to appear before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's court in Calcutta yesterday. The hearing on the case has been deferred to September 15.

This is the first time the chairman has not appeared before a court of law in relation with the investigations into the alleged Rs 80-crore Fera violation case. Chhabria had evaded the directorate's summons on several occasions. The date of hearing was the first one fixed by the court after the ED started criminal prosecution against Chhabria and his Mumbai-based brother-in-law Niranjan Thakur. Thakur, too, did not appear at the CMM's court.

 

ED authorities are working out possible alternatives on how to get the key person in the case into the country, for interrogation, whose statement will provide the vital clues for unravelling many unanswered questions related to the case.

The ED has time till Nov-ember, to complete probe into the case, as it has been granted an additional six months to complete investigations into the case by the government. The ED will probably review the progress of the case so far and think of fresh alternatives to crack it, sources said.

The final report on the case has, however, been submitted to the ED headquarters in New Delhi by the authorities in the Calcutta zonal office.

However, any report on the case is incomplete without the version and statements of key persons such as Chhabria himself, Niranjan Thakur and several other key employees who have not given any confessional statements, the sources said.

Vital facts such as the actual flight of capital, routes used for siphoning off the money and involvement of commercial banks are still the grey areas which need to be verified.

Statements of these persons are expected to throw some light on these issues. The directorate was compelled to file a criminal suit after the elusive chairman refused to honour any summons issued by the it on four occasions.

The chairman's stand at the outset was that since he was a non-resident Indian, he was not bound by Indian laws and regulations, thus snuffing out any hope that the ED may have had, of bringing him into the country.