New Delhi: Ratul Puri, the nephew of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, who was arrested this week by the Enforcement Directorate for an alleged Rs. 354 crore bank fraud, has approached a Delhi court seeking to surrender in a separate money-laundering case connected to the AgustaWestland chopper scam.
The businessman was facing a non-bailable warrant after investigators told the court that the businessman may try to tamper with evidence and influence witnesses. The court will hear Puri’s request to surrender on Friday.
The Delhi court on Wednesday refused to cancel a non-bailable warrant against him in the case related to the chopper scam. Puri had said that he was willing to cooperate in the probe. A day before that, the Delhi High Court had rejected his request for protection from arrest.
Puri, a former senior executive of the now-defunct electronics firm Moser Baer, was charged by the CBI in a separate case based on a complaint by state-run Central Bank of India, which alleged that the company had taken loans from various banks since 2009 and misused the money. Puri and four former directors are accused of forging bank documents for a Rs. 354 crore-swindle.
Puri, 47, has also been the subject of a number of separate investigations in recent months, including the AgustaWestland chopper scam involving allegations of bribe to facilitate a Rs. 3,600 crore deal for a dozen luxury helicopters for Indian VIPs in 2007, when the Congress-led UPA was in power.
On Monday, he was summoned by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the Agusta case and after brief questioning, arrested for the alleged bank fraud.
The probe agency had told a Delhi court on Monday that Puri has been evading investigation into a money laundering case linked to the chopper deal. Puri told the court he was willing to join the probe into the chopper scam but requested that a non-bailable warrant put out against him be cancelled.
