The Sandesaras, absconding accused in a Rs 8,100-crore Sterling Biotech bank fraud case, have denied any wrongdoing and charged probe agencies with “playing dirty tricks in the garb of their investigations to actually ruin the settlement and prevent the banks from realising their dues”.

In a detailed rebuttal to the Enforcement Directorate’s response against an appeal filed by the four accused in the Delhi High Court against a lower court order declaring them as fugitive economic offenders, they alleged that the lower court “acted in a mechanical manner”.

A local court in Delhi had in September last year declared four directors of pharmaceuticals firm Sterling Biotech – Nitin and Chetan Sandesara, the latter’s wife Dipti, and the Sandesaras’ brother-in-law Hiteshkumar Nirendrabhai Patel – as fugitive economic offenders.

“Even after a lapse of four years since the inception of FIR, CBI has failed to file” any charge sheet, the accused said in their rebuttal. ET has reviewed a copy of it.

The CBI had registered an FIR in the Sterling Biotech fraud case on August 30, 2017. Three income-tax commissioners also stand booked by the agency.

The four accused have denied association with a diary, which was allegedly recovered from one of the premises of Sterling Biotech raided by the income-tax sleuths in June 2011. The said diary, allegedly maintained by an employee of a company, contains handwritten records of certain alleged transactions of the group between June 1, 2011 to June 28, 2011, including some cash transactions involving certain individuals and public servants.

“The group never accepted the contents of diary,” Sandesaras have submitted in its response to the Delhi High Court. The rebuttal alleged that six years later (in 2017) the income-tax department shared certain documents/evidences in the case of Sterling Biotech with the ED. “The reason thereof is blatantly actuated with malice as ED was proceeding with a pre-conceived design to somehow implicate the group to settle some personal scores of certain persons of eminence,” it said.

On the issue of properties attached by ED, the four accused said, “All the properties sought to be confiscated are either provisionally attached under PMLA or are equitably mortgaged and requisite charge has been created by the banks/financial institutions. Therefore, banks/financial institutions equally had an interest in the properties sought to be confiscated.”

The accused have claimed that “valuation of the assets lying mortgaged with the bank/charge lien is created is Rs.27, 757 Crores which is much more than the amount due even as per the absurd calculation on which the CBI is relying. (Rs.13000 Crore approximately)”.

The rebuttal further said even after the registration of cases against Sterling Biotech “the group has successfully negotiated a one-time settlement (OTS) with banks and has paid a total sum of Rs 812 crore out of which Rs 614 crore was towards the said OTS…which was much more than the best liquidation offer”.

“Neither the owners nor the lenders who have interest in the properties in question have been made noticees (respondents) and no notice has been issued to them,” it said.

ET was the first to report on April 8 that the ED had informed the Delhi High Court that the Indian government is in the process of approaching Interpol seeking to review its refusal to issue red corner notices against the four accused.