Court to hear police plea to close cheating case against Qatar-based company

A court here is scheduled to hear on Tuesday a plea of the economic offence wing (EOW) of Delhi police seeking to close a Rs 1,000-crore worth cheating case against Qatar-based company Hassad Foods for allegedly misappropriating stock of an Indian company involved in export of basmati rice which it acquired in 2013.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Chander Jit Singh will hear the matter in which the Delhi police said there was lack of evidence to file charge sheet against the accused.

The FIR was lodged on a complaint of Virkaran Awasty, erstwhile Managing Director of Indian company, Bush Foods Overseas Pvt Ltd (BFOPL).

In his complaint, Awasty claimed that after the Qatar-based company took over BFOPL, it ordered physical verification of its stock in 2013 on the requested of the consortium of the lender banks and it was concluded that the stock available with the Indian company in its warehouses was adequate and as per the records maintained by BFOPL. However, he was later suspended from the company and "new management forcefully removed stocks from the warehouses" and a fresh stock verification of all the warehouses of the company was carried out "based on the diminished stock of the company BFOPL", the complaint said.

A separate case has been filed against Awasty and others by Qatar-based company alleging that the Indian company had fudged accounts and indulged in fictitious sales amounting to Rs 1,000 crore.

Awasty is absconding and is currently in London. A Delhi court is hearing proceedings seeking his extradition to India.

Delhi police, in response to a protest petition filed by advocates Tushar Roy and Kinnori Ghosh on behalf of Awasty, submitted before the court in December last year that all contentions raised by the complainant were investigated before filing the closure report in December 2016.

The complainant, however, had alleged that partial and biased investigation was done in the matter as the investigation officer made his report only on basis of the cross FIR filed by the Qatar-based company.

The court is scheduled to hear arguments on January 19 on the protest petition against the closure of the case filed by Awasty.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)