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Summons to Swamy in SPIC disinvestment case

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI OCT. 14. A special court here has issued summons to the Janata Party president, Subramanian Swamy, for his appearance on October 21 to record his examination-in-chief in the case of `SPIC disinvestment scam', registered by the CBI.

R.Rajamanickam, special judge-I, issued summons to two other witnesses — P.C.Cyriac, a former Industries Secretary, and P.Durairajan, a former Senior Finance Analyst, TIDCO, and at present Assistant General Manager of a State Government undertaking to come to the court that day for recording their evidence.

Dr. Swamy is considered an important witness, as it was on his petition that the Madras High Court directed the CBI to register the case. Already nine witnesses, including the Tamil Nadu Finance Secretary, N.Narayanan, testified before the trial court.

The central investigating agency filed the charge sheet against Jayalalithaa, the former Industries Secretary, C.Ramachandran, and the SPIC president and vice-chairman, A.C.Muthiah, on August 18, 2000 for offences under Sections 13 (2) and 13 (1) (d) of Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 109 (abetment) IPC.

The allegation is that Ms. Jayalalithaa (during her previous tenure as CM) and Mr. Ramachandran abused their official position to favour M.A. Chidambaram (since deceased) and his son, Mr. Muthiah, in bringing back Chidambaram as SPIC chairman and to relinquish TIDCO's rights to invest in the joint-sector company's "zero conversion bonds". Because of this, the Government incurred a loss.

A total of 27 witnesses were listed in the charge sheet.

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