Rakesh Bhatnagar

New Delhi: Civil aviation minister Praful Patel has moved the Supreme Court seeking quashing of a Bombay High Court order that allowed a CBI probe against him in an alleged Rs 50 crore fraud in a 1993 UTI scam case.

The court allowed the additional chief metropolitan magistrate, Esplanade, Mumbai’s order that directed an aggrieved petitioner, M Furquan, to approach the high court for a CBI probe into the scam.

Furquan had filed a complaint in the trial court saying that Patel was the chairman of Santacruz-based Autoriders Finance Ltd, which had borrowed Rs 25 crore in 1993 and another Rs 25 crore in 1995 for setting up an auto finance company in Mumbai.

"The complainant is directed to take necessary steps to transfer this case to the CBI in the interest of specialised investigation, by making appropriate application before the high court at Bombay as early as possible,’’ the magistrate ordered on September 12, 2006.

Patel’s petition in the apex court says that HC has accepted Furquan’s petition that was filed in pursuant to the trial court order.

"The impugned high court order is erroneous and results in miscarriage of justice. It is demonstrated by subsequent facts that the magistrate has now passed an order on September 12, 2006, directing the complainant UTI to approach the high court by filing appropriate application for seeking transfer of the case to the CBI,’’ said Patel in the petition seeking quashing of the high court order.

The trial of the UTI scam cases is going on before the magistrate in Mumbai. The high court could not have and ought not to have issued directions relating to the manner in which the criminal complaints should be investigated, conducted and proceeded with, Patel said.

"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 CrPC,” he added.

"The so-called PIL was clearly motivated which was obvious from the reading of the petition itself as the petitioner was seeking to gain political mileage by virtue of this position,’’ said Patel.

The Autoriders Finance Ltd had purchased several vehicles out of the financial assistance and was renting out them for commercial purposes.

Source : DNA