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Court asks CBI to file status report in Lakhubhai cheating case

A designated court today asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to file a status report on sending a commission to Canada even as three foreign national witnesses failed to depose in the $ 100,000 Lakhubhai Pathak cheating case against former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao and two others.

Additional Sessions Judge Ajit Bharihoke had earlier allowed the CBI plea to send a commission to Canada to record the statement of a witness, W E Miller. During the last hearing on January 15, the CBI had told the court that the issue of commission ''is under process and would take some time.''

Counsel Rajinder Singh, representing the other accused, Chandra Swami and his aide Kailash Nath Aggarwal alias 'Mamaji,' told the court today that his clients admitted the entries in their passports, stating that these were ''inadvertently denied'' during the last hearing.

The admission would obviate the need for examining a witness, David Harper, an immigration official in London, one of those who did not appear in court today.

The other two witnesses to whom summons had been issued for today are Patrick Brien, a Scotland Yard officer, and Fidelma Elizabeth.

The judge fixed August 28 for the next hearing in the case relating to the alleged cheating of the late London-based NRI businessman, Lakhubhai Pathak, by the three accused in 1984 on the promise that they would get him a government contract for supply of paper pulp.

Barring the complainant and his son Yogesh Pathak, none of the 27 foreign national witnesses listed by the CBI in the case have so far deposed in the court.

UNI

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