The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Court quashes proceedings

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Wednesday, May 14, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Court quashes proceedings

Staff Reporter

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has quashed proceedings relating to four cases against A.Ravishankar Prasad, A.Manohar Prasad, Ravishankar Films Pvt. Ltd., Gemini Arts Pvt. Ltd., Gemini Pictures Circuits Pvt. Ltd., Prasad Properties and Investments Pvt. Ltd., before the Additional Special Judge for CBI Cases, Chennai.

The allegations against the petitioners were that they had allegedly received loans from Indian Bank without proper sanction and diverted the funds to group companies by floating four ‘benami’ partnership firms and offered intangible securities as collateral.

Justice M. Jayapal, before whom the case came up for hearing, said that the witnesses so far examined in the case had not spoken anything about the role of the petitioners and the materials exhibited did not indicate any involvement of the petitioners in any of the cases.

“The petitioners have already settled the amounts due to the bank and the cases before the DRT have been withdrawn. Hence continuance of the trial is only an exercise in futility and will be harassment of the petitioners,” he said and quashed the proceedings against them.

The petitioners, who had been invited to take over the Gemini Group and turn around its business, had availed loans to the tune of Rs.121 crore from the bank and subsequently turned around the business.

The bank then initiated recovery proceedings before the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT), which suggested a settlement by which the bank could recover its dues without crushing the industries and its business.

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