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HC issues notices to government, VSP and SAIL in import licence scam

The Delhi high court today issued show-cause notices to the ministry of steel and mines, Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, Steel Authority of India Limited and others on a public interest petition seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the financial irregularities in the sale and disposal of duty-free import licences for steel of about Rs 10 billion.

A division bench comprising Justices Y K Sabharwal and K S Gupta asked the respondents to file their replies within four weeks and fixed the matter for further hearing on December 14. Notices were also issued to Metals and Scrap Trading Corporation and Baron Impex Limited, a private party to which the licences were issued.

The petition filed by a Delhi-based journalist Raman Swamy alleged that VSP, SAIL and MSTC had indulged in a large-scale favouritism in the granting of the licences and had also made attempts to cover up their acts. The ministry and the public sector companies were also making efforts to ensure delivery of duty-free import licences of about Rs 3 billion to Baron Impex Limited under such fraudulently awarded contracts.

He claimed that the petition was being filed with an intention to prevent such fraud being perpetrated on public money and to intiate action against the officers or functionaries of the ministry, steel companies and MSTC for causing a loss of about Rs 1.25 billion to the public exchequer.

UNI