A North 24 Parganas court on Sunday sent industrialist Pawan Ruia, the chairman of multi-crore Pawan Ruia group, to 14-days’ CID custody.
Ruia, who had been looking right through repeated summons issued by the Bengal Crime Investigation Department in connection to complaints of theft and cheating filed by the Indian Railways, was arrested by the CID sleuths on Saturday from his Delhi residence where a dramatic raid was conducted forcing Ruia to first hide into a washroom and then inside the servant quarters.
He was flown to Kolkata by a late evening flight and was produced before a Barrackpore Court on Sunday.
The CID had booked the Ruia boss under Sections 420 (cheating) 406 (criminal breach of trust), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, banker, merchant or agent), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and arsoning, sources said.
Following an FIR filed by the Railways the CID had started an investigation into the case and summoned him repeatedly. Ruia, however, claimed that he was not the director of the Jessop Group and hence need not be called for the purpose. He also moved the High Court for quashing of the cases filed against him.
The High Court in its order, however, asked him to cooperate with the investigations and also asked the CID not to become unnecessarily harsh with him till he cooperated.
While refusing to respond to the CID summons, Ruia argued-the argument was repeated even on Sunday by his advocate in the court-that he had resigned as Jessop director in January 2008 and hence did not merit a summons to be issued in his name.
The CID, however, contended that for the simple reason of his being the chairman of Ruia group which controls Jessop the summons were not only legal but also required. This, more so on because Ruia would be the appropriate person to locate a large number of crucial documents were missing from the Jessop premises.
CID sources said that the Railways which had given Rs50 crore contact to Jessop had also supplied materials through the BHEl and SAIl. “All those materials supplied are missing,” said officials quoting the workers that the “management played a role in pinching the costly materials.”
The Ruias, however, argued that a bank guarantee of Rs50 crore had already been given before the contract was procured. So the Railway could well realize the sum from the banks and there was no reason to arrest Ruia.
Apart from Jessop, the Ruia group also owns the historic Dunlop India company which has a large closed down unit at Shahganj in Hooghly district from where the tyres of Bofors Guns were manufactured during the Kargil War.
Currently the gigantic unit of Dunlop Tyres at Shahganj lies in ruins and its workers suffer in complete disarray amid complaints that Ruia served Dunlop no better than Jessop.
As far as Jessop was concerned its Dum Dum unit which was primarily responsible for constructing railway wagons hit the headlines in the recent past following repeated thefts and cases of fire even as the workers and locals complained that all that bad happened there were at the behest of the management who were slowly but steadily purloininaway the pricey interiors, and machinery parts from the shut down unit bleeding the dead white elephant hundreds of crores in the process.
The Ruias which have stakes in tyres and rubber, health services and engineering industries in the South also were gradually allowing the mother plants at Kolkata and Hooghly to die and siphoning resources from here to their southern units, sources allege.