NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday allowed A.E. Pinto, a London-based Brazilian businessman and one of the key accused in the Rs. 133-crore urea scam case, to visit the British capital to meet his family members and attend to his wife who is suffering from cancer.

Justice S.K. Aggarwal of the High Court allowed Pinto's plea following furnishing of two bank guarantees of Rs. 20 lakhs each by him.

In September, Mr. Justice Aggarwal had given Pinto the bank guarantee option for getting the Court's permission to travel to his native place.

Undertaking

Counsel for the accused had also given an undertaking to the Court that his client would close the examination of his defence witnesses and would not cross-examine them. He had further stated that Pinto would not dispute his identity given out by the defence witnesses during their evidence.

Pinto would be represented by his counsel in the trial of the case and would appear before the trial court as and when required by it, the undertaking said.

The trial has been going on in a Special court for CBI cases at the Tis Hazari courts here.

The CBI had brought Pinto here from London in August 2000. He was not available for investigation in the case for a long time. He had been arrested by the London police in December 1997 and had fought a CBI request for his extradition in a court there for two-and-half years.

Nine accused

Apart from Pinto the other accused in the case are: They are Prakash Chandra Yadav, son of former Union Minister Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav; Tankay Alankus, chairman and chief executive of the Turkish company, Messrs Karsan Limited (to which the National Fertilizers Limited had given the contract to supply two lakh tonnes of urea); Sambasiva Rao; B. Sanjeeva Rao, a close relative of former Prime Minister late P.V. Narasimha Rao; Malleshan Gaud; C.K. Ramakrishnan, former managing director of the NFL; Dilbagh Singh Kanwar, former executive director, NFL; and Cihan Karanci, vice-president of the Turkish company.

The CBI had charge-sheeted the accused in December 1997. The investigating agency alleged that Ramakrishnan, Kanwar and other officials of the NFL at New Delhi and at other places during 1995-96 had entered into a criminal conspiracy with Sambasiva Rao, Indian agent of the Karsan Limited; Alankus, Karanci and others to misappropriate the funds of the NFL.

In furtherance of the conspiracy, they had signed an agreement on November 9, 1995, for import of 2,00,000 metric tonnes of urea against 100 per cent cash payment in advance. The NFL had paid the total amount of Rs. 133 crores to Karsan Limited in advance for supply of urea but the firm did not send even a single grain of it, and in conspiracy with the accused persons, had misappropriated the same, the CBI alleged.

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