Central Excise officials not to arrest executives of Sterlite

Until disposal of cases filed by company challenging authority of officials

The Central Excise Commissionerate, Tirunelveli, gave an undertaking before the Madras High Court Bench here on Thursday that it will not arrest any other executive of the Tuticorin based Sterlite Industries until the disposal of cases filed by the company challenging the authority of the Excise officials who arrested its vice-president S. Varadharajan on Saturday on charges of evading import duty to the tune of Rs.746 crore.

Refused to restrain enquiries

Justice R.S. Ramanathan recorded the undertaking given by counsel for Central Excise and reserved his orders in the batch of cases filed by the company.

The judge, however, refused to restrain the Excise officials from calling the company executives to attend enquiries in relation to the tax evasion case.

The latter's counsel contended that his clients could not be subjected to enquiries by “unauthorised officers.”

The bail application of Mr. Varadharajan, which came up for hearing, was dismissed on Thursday by ACJM.