SC to hear Praful Patel's plea in fraud case on Monday

The Supreme Court will hear on Monday a petition filed by Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel seeking a direction to stop proceedings by a trial court in a fraud case of Rs 50 crore involving a company once chaired by him.

The matter will be heard by a bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhan. Earlier, the apex court had stayed the Bombay High Court's direction that asked the trial court to go ahead with the matter seeking a CBI probe.

According to Patel, Unit Trust of India (UTI) in April 2004 had filed a complaint before the magistrate's court against nine directors of Mumbai-based Auto Riders Finance Ltd alleging that they misappropriated the security given against a Rs 50-crore loan borrowed between 1993 and 1995 for setting up the auto finance company.

Patel, who was a non-executive director and chairman, had learnt about the complaint through newspapers, the petition filed before the apex court in 2006 had stated.

However, UTI had later sought deletion of three names, including that of Patel, on the ground that they had ceased to be directors since March 1999 and were not concerned with day-to-day working of the company, the petition added.

According to Patel, the magistrate had deleted his name and the names of T N V Ayyar and Surendra Ruia on November 19, 2004 and the order had not been challenged till the filing of the appeal before the apex court in 2006.

However, the minister said that the High Court on August 16, 2006 had entertained two PILs filed by a Delhi-based journalist M Furquan and one Shoaib Alias Richie Sequeira and allowed the order of the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Mumbai, that asked the petitioners to approach the High Court for a CBI probe into the scam.

The High Court had asked the trail court to go ahead with the matter seeking a CBI probe and ignore the order passed by the magistrate in November 2004 that dropped the three accused persons and directed the complainant to move the High Court for transfer of the case to the CBI. While stating that UTI had deleted his name after realising that he had no connection with the alleged acts, Patel said that the High Court was not right in entertaining the criminal PILs which was motivated and filed with a collateral purpose.

"The High Court ought not to have entertained a purported PIL and interfere with the proceedings before a criminal court which is proceeding as per the procedure provided under the criminal procedure," the minister said.

"The law enjoins upon the magistrate to examine the inquiry report and to thereafter decide whether a case has been made out for issuing process to the accused. If no case is made out the complaint has to be dismissed," he stated.

Denying charges, Patel stated that he had ceased to be the director by virtue of resignation and he had nothing to do with the company at the time of alleged offence.

"There has been grave miscarriage of justice against the petitioner (Patel)... And if the order of the magistrate is to be acted upon in the manner which it has been directed, the petitioner and the two directors who have been deleted, would be unnecessarily subjected to prolonged and stigmatised investigation which is unwarranted in law..., " the petition filed through advocate K R Sash Prabhu stated.

Apart from Patel, Amarish Patel, Bhupesh Patel, Manubhai Patel, TNV Ayyar, Surendra Ruia, Bhupendra Patel, Abay Shah, Gaurang Tripathi were the other members of the defunct Autoriders Finace.