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Court to hear Dhirubhai Ambani's discharge plea on Sept 13

A local court will hear arguments on September 13 on applications filed by chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd Dhirubhai Ambani and some others seeking discharge in a case filed by the Central Bureau on Investigation against them for allegedly cheating the union government of millions of rupees through import of purified terepthalic acid by flouting policy.

The case, registered by CBI in 1985, came up for hearing on Thursday before additional chief metropolitan magistrate P V Taware who adjourned the matter to September 13 for arguments.

Dhirubhai has already been exempted from appearance and would therefore not be required to come before the court.

Dhirubhai has pleaded that the only accusation against him was that he was the chairman and managing director of the company when the alleged offence was committed.

The CBI allegation that nothing would have transpired without his knowledge was baseless, Dhirubhai argued.

CBI, on the other hand, pleaded that the chargesheet had been accepted by the court and the accused had not challenged the process issued by the magistrate in a higher court.

CBI filed a chargesheet against Dhirubhai and eight others on January 5, 1996, alleging that the company and other accused had forged letters of credit in connivance of officials of two foreign banks.

Other accused are Venkatarman Temmapa Pai (the then general manager-finance of RIL), Natwarlal Ambani (executive director-RIL), B N Banerjee and G N Venkatraman, Manager and Accountant respectively of Standard Chartered bank, Gerard Hannotin, Jean Francois Cahet and Sandra Martyres, General Manager and Deputy General Manager and Manger (operations) respectively of Societe Generale Bank, Bombay.

The case of Banerjee, Gerard and Jean was separated in April 1998, as the court felt that their presence could not be secured. During the pendency of the case, Natwarlal Ambani expired on March 1, 1998. Others are facing the trial.

CBI had filed a FIR on November 18, 1985, alleging that certain officials of ministries of commerce and finance and Controller of Exports and Imports abused their position as public servants to cause pecuniary advantage to RIL in the matter of import of PTA.

CBI alleged that PTA was proposed to be brought under limited permissible instead of open general licence with effect from May 29, 1985, but two days prior to this, some government officials divulged secret information to RIL which in turn established letters of credit to import 80,000 MTs of PTA and managed to import 50,000 MTs of the product under OGL.

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