DPP withdraws charges against foreign investor
Recently, a Lagos High Court, presided over by Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye, struck out frivolous fraud charges brought against two British nationals, Deepak Khilnani and Sushil Chandra by the Attorney General of Lagos State.
The decision of the court was sequel to a Notice of Discontinuance filed by the State Director of Public Prosecutions, Mrs. Titi Shitta-Bey appealing to the court to strike out the case in the light of a review of the case by the State Attorney General, Mr. Kazeem Adeniji.
It had been alleged by the Attorney General, through the State prosecution team, led by the then Director of Public Prosecution, Mrs. E.I. Alakija (now a serving judge of Lagos High Court), in a charge that Deepak Khilnani and Sushil Chandra sometimes in 2008 defrauded a Nigerian company Green Fuels Ltd of about $8.8million.
However, there was apparently no evidence to support such an allegation and it was totally unfounded.
When the case started in 2015, the media was awash with sensational headlines of how these British nationals had allegedly defrauded their Nigerian business partners.
The truth was that the allegations against the defendants were baseless and unsustainable before any court of law in the country.
Although the presiding judge; during the early stages of the trial dismissed a motion seeking to quash the charges, the State prosecution team still could not make meaningful progress in the matter, because there was simply no evidence to prove the allegation against the Defendants.
This was evident at the proceedings of 22nd October, 2015, when the then DPP urged the Court to adjourn the proceedings indefinitely to enable her to amend the Proof of Evidence.
The fact was simply that a non-existence criminal implication was being imported into a purely business disagreement between Deepak Khilnani and his Nigerian partners.
The background to this civil dispute is that Ola Rosiji and Anil Ahluwalia, who had formed a company called Green Fuels Limited, approached Mr. Khilnani’s company in 2009 to join them in building a Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) gas distribution company – clearly this is a very technical business; and Khilnani’s company held significant experience and expertise in this area.
After protracted negotiations and discussions, Green Fuels entered into a contract with Khilnani’s Company Gentec Energy, a UK PLC company, to build the plant, train their personnel and provide technical management support to the business.
The contract was signed by Ahluwalia on behalf of Green Fuels Limited and the funds for the project were initially provided by Rosiji’s company, Nigerian Distillers Ltd.
