Times of India reported that the Bombay HC directed the MRA Marg police, who are probing a fake iron ore certificate scam, to give a 72 hour notice to four directors of Raipur based Hira Steels Ltd before arresting them.
While giving the interim relief, the division bench of Justices AS Oka and Sadhna Jadhav had kept the matter for quashing of the FIR pending till the hearing on Monday.
The directors Mr Jagdish Prasad Agrawal, Mr Amit Agrawal, Mr Ajay Ahluwalia and Mr Pankaj Agarwal had filed a criminal application for quashing of the FIR of cheating and forgery charges against them.
Hira group's advocate Fiji Fedrick said, "Hira Steels was first to file the complaint of cheating against Geo-Chem's directors in Raipur. Later, the directors went in for quashing the FIR, which was rejected. It was an afterthought that Geo-Chem, in a bid to defend itself, has filed a private complaint against Hira Steels."
In June, Geo-Chem, a company with expertise in inspection, survey and testing of cargo and commodities, filed a complaint under Section 156 (3) of CrPC before the 38th court alleging that their former employee Jagannathan Rao and Prasanna Ghotge an iron ore exporter had cheated the company by issuing a fake quality certificate.
Hira Steels alleged that Ghotge had signed an agreement with it on May 7, 2011, for supplying 110,000 tonnes of iron ore having 51% iron content. Ghotge supplied only 41,253 tonnes to Hira Steels and the firm supplied the same to a company in China. In July 2011, prior to the cargo reaching China, the buyer had sent an email to the head office of Geo-Chem in Mumbai enquiring about the authenticity of its report. The Mumbai office immediately replied to the Chinese buyer stating that the report was fake. Later when the material was inspected in China in August it was found that the iron ore supplied by Ghotge was found to be of inferior quality and it iron content was about 41%