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Rastogi brothers chargesheeted yet again

The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed another chargesheet against influential London-based Non Resident Indian businessman Virender Rastogi, his Dubai-based brother Ravindra and two others for allegedly claiming bogus duty drawback of Rs 11 million on three export consignments.

The chargesheet was filed at a designated court in Chennai by CBI's Economic Offence Wing accusing Virender, Ravindra, Anand Jain and B K Gupta of attempting to cheat the government in the matter of claiming duty drawback of Rs 11 million on three different export consignments of alleged bicycle parts.

The designated court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate has taken cognizance of the chargesheet, the CBI sources said.

The CBI has charged that after investigations it was found that the consignments were falsely declared as bicycle mechanical parts like brake screw, brake show, handle lever and brake button while they consisted of screws and bolts.

The CBI said that the Rastogi brothers had attempted to send these consignments under three different companies-- Gulishta Industries, Sobat India and Unimac India--owned by them.

During investigations, the CBI found that the market value of the consignments was only Rs 6.4 million while as the Rastogi brothers had over invoiced them nearly 10 times at Rs 69 million they claimed a duty drawback of Rs 11 million which was more than the actual value of the entire consignment itself.

The CBI filed the chargesheet against the four under 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 420 (cheating) and 132 of the Customs Act.

The CBI informed the court that except for Gupta, all others were out of the country and the agency was trying to trace and arrest them through Interpol.

This is the second chargesheet against the Rastogi brothers. Earlier, the same wing of the CBI filed a chargesheet against them in a designated court in Mumbai.

The case came to light when the Customs department in Mumbai initiated an enquiry against 18 of its officials for passing the consignment of one Allied Deals without any verification.

The Customs department had referred the matter of departmental action to Central Vigilance Commission, which in turn asked the CBI to probe the matter.

According to the chargesheet, the CBI alleged that five companies, whose directors were the four Rastogi brothers -- Subash, Virender, Ravinder and Narinder -- exported bycle parts during 1995-96 to Russia and Hong Kong by heavily over invoicing the value of goods with the objective of dishonestly claiming excess duty draw back from customs.

While B K Gupta was out on bail, the bail application of Subhash Rastogi, who has been under arrest since September 9, was rejected again by the Mumbai court.

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