New Delhi, Jan 5 (IANS) The Supreme Court Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit seeking that the CBI be directed to produce before the court a Brazilian citizen facing trial here since mid-1990s for allegedly defrauding the Indian exchequer of Rs.13.3 million in a case involving supplying of urea from Turkey to India.
A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice B.S. Chauhan dismissed the special habeas corpus plea, asking where was the need to issue direction for the production of the accused, A.E. Pinto, before the court when he is already facing trial.

The bench dismissed the lawsuit, filed by Pinto’s Portuguese wife Engenia Teles Pinto, who, through her lawsuit, had indirectly demanded that the bail conditions imposed on her husband be relaxed.

For his alleged role in the 1995 urea scam, Britain resident and Brazilian national Pinto was arrested in London in 1997 and was later extradited to India to face trial here in the designated Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court.

He was granted bail after staying in Delhi’s high security Tihar Jail for five years, two months and nine days, said the lawsuit filed by Pinto’s wife, who is here in India on a 180-day tourist visa to secure freedom for her husband.

In her lawsuit, Engenia Pinto had contended that despite bail being granted, her husband has been denied permission to visit their home in London and has been restrained in New Delhi to face the trial, which is on for the last 12 years.

Her counsel Wills Mathew contended before the bench that a foreign national, extradited to India from abroad, can be accorded a jail term no longer than seven years.

Yet her husband is in virtual jail term in Delhi for the last 12 years, facing trial and suffering with various old-age diseases.

The Rs.13.3 million urea scam, involving former prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao’s relative B. Sanjeeva Rao, former union minister Ramlakhan Singh Yadav’s son Prakash Chandra and seven others, dates back to November 1995, when National Fertiliser Ltd had paid $37.62 million in advance to the Turkish firm for the purchase of urea.

But various accused involved in the scam had shared the amount amongst themselves without honouring the contract.

The CBI had chargesheeted nine people, including Pinto, for their alleged role in the scam. Among the others chargesheeted were Turkish firm Karsan Ltd’s executives Tuncay Alankus and Cihan Karanci, former National Fertilisers Ltd managing director C.K. Ramakrishnan, its former executive director Dilbagh Singh, Karsan’s Indian agent M. Sambasiva Rao, and D. Mallesam Goud.

The CBI is still conducting the trial.