New Delhi, June 05: The Supreme Court today rejected Brazilian A E Pinto's request seeking a direction to the Delhi High Court to expeditiously dispose of his plea for quashing of charges against him in the Rs 133 crore urea import scam. A vacation bench comprising Justice N Santosh Hegde and Justice Shivaraj V Patil dismissed the petition filed by Pinto saying that his right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of Indian Constitution had been violated due to long delay in the disposal of his petition before the High Court and the delay in expeditious trial in the case. The bench said the same plea could be made before the High Court and dismissed the petition saying it found no merit in it. Pinto, arrested in 1997 in London in connection with the urea import scam, was extradited and brought to India in 2000 to face trial.

He said that though he had filed the petition last year before the high court seeking discharge from the case claiming he had documents to prove that he was not part of the conspiracy to defraud India of Rs 133 crore in the import of urea, the same has not yet been decided.

India had advanced Rs 133 crore to Karsan Ltd for import of two lakh metric tonnes of urea but not a single grain of the fertiliser reached the country. The two top executive of Karsan - Tuncay Alankus and Cihan Karanci - are at present in judicial custody facing trial. Bureau Report