The decade-old case of the Andhra Pradesh government of being duped of Rs. 11.67 crore by persons who promised to set up a car manufacturing unit of auto major Volkswagen at Visakhapatnam, has received fresh impetus with the metropolitan sessions court at Nampally issuing summons to six accused to appear before it on April 30.
The court took cognizance of the charge sheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and issued summons to former executive of Volkswagen, Helmut Schuster, who was subsequently removed by the company as its in-charge of India operations, and former India representative of the company, Ashok Kumar Jain.
Directors of ‘Vashishta Wahan’ – Jagdish Alagaraja, Gayatri Chandravadan, Bhuwan Kumar Chaturvedi and Joseph V. George have been summoned. They had claimed that their company is an Indian arm of Volkswagen.
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The Enforcement Directorate took up investigation on the basis of a charge sheet in the case filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation in September 2010. But the case itself pertained to January 2005 when the Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy government transferred 2 million euros (Rs. 11.67 crore) as initial deposit for participation in the equity of ‘Vashishta Wahan’.
After the money was withdrawn by Schuster and Ashok Jain, the State government contacted the company headquarters only to be informed that it had never given consent for any plant at Vizag and it had not received 2 million euros. It forced the then State government to order a CBI probe. While Schuster was later traced in Rome with the aid of Interpol, some of the others were arrested and released on bail.