DEHRADUN (AFP) – An Indian court has refused bail to a member of the Gupta family, linked to orchestrating industrial-scale corruption in South Africa, in connection with allegedly abetting the suicide of a businessman.
The Indian-born Gupta brothers – Atul, Ajay and Rajesh – built a sprawling business empire in South Africa after moving there in 1993 as the country opened up to foreign investment when white-minority rule crumbled.
Last month, 58-year-old Ajay Gupta and another family member, Anil Gupta, were arrested in Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand state.
The case concerns the death of Satinder Singh Sawhney, a 52-year-old building developer working on housing projects with the Guptas.
His corpse was found at the bottom of an apartment block on May 24.
Sawhney’s son said he left a suicide note in which he accused the two men of threatening him.
The Times of India quoted director of prosecution Girish Pancholi as saying that Sawhney had accused Ajay and Anil Gupta of having “forced him to commit suicide” after filing “fake cases against him”.
The two Guptas were detained the next day, with their “weak” bail application denied on Friday, the order from Dehradun’s district court read.
“Anil Gupta and Ajay Gupta can approach the high court, but the case is so serious that it will be difficult for them to secure bail,” government lawyer Guru Prasad Raturi told AFP yesterday.
In 2018, South African investigators said the Guptas colluded with ex-president Jacob Zuma to siphon off state assets under a system that, according to one estimate, cost several billion dollars.
