Saradhi discounts charges in FERA case

The Minister for Secondary Education, KP Saradhi, here on Thursday, discounted the charges of Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) case against him and said that he had left the decision to the party high command.

Speaking to the media, Saradhi said that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a Switzerland company to supply machinery for a plastic components factory in 1994, which was established with him as one of the partners.

As per the MoU, he said that they paid 15 per cent of the cost of the machinery which accounted to Rs 65 lakh to the company after taking due clearance from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) towards advance. He said that the Andhra Bank had agreed to give them the bank guarantee on December 7, 1994.

However, the Andhra Bank, later had withdrawn the bank guarantee issued to them. With this, he said that they could not import the machinery from Switzerland and the company had subsequently refused to return the advance paid to them.

The Minister said that the Enforcement Directorate had filed a case against them under Sections 83 and 84 of the FERA in Hyderabad court. The court had imposed penalty of Rs 3 lakh on them, he said and added that they have challenged the court judgment in the Tribunal.

"Our advocate, Srinivasa Rao, represented us in the tribunal. But, the ED informed us that the Tribunal had dismissed our plea and had subsequently sent the orders to an advocate Mukesh attributing him as our advocate.