Court Stays Rao'S Arrest Warrant

Non-bailable arrest warrants were also issued against former Union minister K K Tewary, former director of Enforcement Directorate K L Verma and Larry Kolb, son-in-law of arms dealer Adnan Khashhoggi. All the arrest warrants are returnable on October 14.

Later in the day, the Delhi High Court granted a stay on the arrest of Rao till Monday following a petition for anticipatory bail by his counsels.

The court issued production warrants against godman Chandraswami and his associate Kailash Nath Aggarwal alias Mamaji, who are in judicial custody in connection with the Lakhubhai Pathak cheating case.

The chief metropolitan magistrate directed the government to initiate extradition proceedings for the arrest of Kolb as he was a foreign national.

 

The magistrate accepted the CBI plea and discharged George D McLean, the chief of First Trust Corporation in St Kitts island in the Caribbean, and former deputy director of Enforcement Directorate A P Nandy, as both of them are dead.

The investigating agency, in its 15-page chargesheet filed on September 26, alleged that Rao, then the external affairs minister and other conspired to forge documents to defame V P Singh, who had been expelled from the Congress two years before the St Kitts controversy began. Singh had raised voice against several corruption cases like Bofors, Airbus and HDW.

The government had sought to show that V P Singh's son, Ajeya, maintained a secret account in the First Trust Corporation at St Kitts.

According to the investigations by the government agencies, the account had been opened by Ajeya in 1986, and in the next two years, over $ 21 million had been deposited and withdrawn from the account.

Soon after the orders for the non-bailable warrants were issued by the court, Central Bureau of Investigations director Joginder Singh held talks with senior CBI officials, reportedly to discuss the future course of action by the agency.