NEW DELHI (PTI): A dealer of imported cars who operated through expatriate Indians has been arrested from a city hospital on charges of violating India’s Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA).
The arrest of Lalit Bagla July 15 came after raids at his residence and office premises here last month and seizure of at least 50 imported cars worth millions of rupees.
Describing the modus operandi of the dealer, directorate officials said Bagla allegedly remitted huge sums of money in foreign countries, mostly in the middle cast, through illegal channels to help his elite clients buy cars.
‘The cars, they said were brought into the country in the name of expatriate Indians returning home after their spell of work there who Were lured with commission and other payoffs.
The dealer was remanded to judicial custody tell July 29 by additional chief metropolitan magistrate, R.K. Sharma.
When officers of the directorate reached his posh residence in south Delhi, Bagla managed to slip out and get admitted to a nearby hospital to evade arrest, sources said.
He was arrested after the hospital gave him a fitness certificate following a medical examination.
Sources said five members of parliament, who reached the hospital, objected to his arrest. But the officers succeeded in arresting him after a brief scuffle, they added.
Bagla was charged with violation of section nine of the FERA which amounted to transmission of moneys abroad through unauthorized channels.
The sources said his associates were being interrogated and officials are carrying out further investigations.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 23, 1993
