NEW DELHI: A Delhi court rejected on Aug. 3 a seventh bail application by controversial guru Chandraswami, a Hindu holy man with political connections now facing cheating charges, reports said. Reports said the Delhi Chief Metropolitan Magistrate dismissed the bail application of both Chandraswami and his secretary Kailash Nath Aggarwal. Chandraswami and Aggarwal were arrested after federal police charged them with cheating British based Indian businessman Lakhu bhai Pathak out of $100,000 in 1983. They had promised Pathak a lucrative government newsprint deal in India.
Pathak, 71, claims former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, who was foreign minister at the time, told him “your work will be done,” after an introduction by Chandraswami. Pathak has also named Rao in the alleged cheating case. “I feel that the state is not yet ripe to enlarge the accused persons on bail,” Judge Prem Kumar said in his judgment. The country’s highest tribunal, the Supreme Court, is due to hear a case on August 12 filed by Rao seeking nonappearance in a lower court for alleged involvement in the cheating case. Chandraswami is acknowledged by Rao as an old acquaintance.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 14, 1996
