Friday, August 12 2005 13:27 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Rajendra S Lodha, involved in a legal battle with the Birlas, has challenged in the Supreme Court an order of Calcutta High Court dismissing a petition seeking quashing of criminal proceedings against him and three others.

In July, the Calcutta High Court had dismissed a petition seeking quashing of criminal proceedings against Lodha, S N Prasad, Dr V Gaurishankar and S K Daga.

The criminal proceedings were initiated in a lower court in October 5, 2004 by a close associate of the Birlas, Rajinder Pansari, against Lodha and three others.

The criminal complaint was filed before the SDJM court against Lodha and the other three, alleging that a fraud was committed on Priyamvada Birla, who, by a purported will, had bequeathed the entire assets of M P Birla group to him.

The criminal case was moved under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) read with 406 (criminal breach of trust), 417 and 420 (cheating), 204 (destruction of documents to prevent its production as evidence) of IPC and Section 93(i)(c) (issue of search warrant) against Lodha and others.

Prasad, however, moved the High Court for quashing or at least a stay on the proceedings till the disposal of the probate petition of Lodha for legal authentication of Priyamvada's purported will.

The Kolkata Court observed no merit in the application and ordered that sub-divisional Judicial Magistrate of Alipore Court would be free to proceed with the criminal case.

The court had also maintained that there was no reasonable ground for granting stay on the criminal proceedings till disposal of the probate proceedings for the assets of the M P Birla group estimated at Rs 5,000 crore.