SC rejects bail: Prabhakar Rao may be arrested in urea scam

The Supreme Court gave the Enforcement Directorate a free hand to arrest former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao's son, Prabhakar Rao, for his alleged violation of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act. It did so by cancelling the anticipatory bail granted to Rao by the Andhra Pradesh high court in connection with Rs 1.3 billion urea scam.

A three-judge bench comprising Justices M K Mukherjee, S P Kurdukar and K T Thomas thereby allowed an appeal by the ED, challenging the high court order.

The violation was discovered when the ED investigated a supply contract for 200,000 tonnes of urea from a Turkish firm.

The judges observed that the high court had granted him anticipatory bail on medical grounds, despite noting in its order that the accusing finger pointed towards Prabhakar Rao.

Following these developments, the ED is likely to summon Rao to New Delhi before making an arrest. The local ED wing, however, did not receive any instructions from its headquarters till the afternoon of August 5. But sources said that, in most such cases, the person is normally summoned to the headquarters and arrested.

UNI