Bombay high court pulls up cops in Mercedes case

The Bombay high court on Thursday directed the Pune Police to inform the directors and the officials of Mercedes-Benz India, 72 hours in advance, if they are the accused in a complaint registered by a Pune-based car dealer.

The CEO and managing director of the company, Wilfred Aulbur and five others have been accused of alleged forgery by Pune-based auto dealer Millennium Motors Private Ltd. The six officials had initially rushed to a sessions court in Pune seeking advanced bail. The sessions court had then directed them to move high court.

Additional public prosecutor Rajeshree Newton informed the court that police have not yet included the applicants (the directors and officials) as accused in the case.

Earlier, the high court had in its order on February 18 stated that in the event of the arrest of these six officials in connection with the complaint filed by Millennium Motors or any of its officers on its behalf, the applicants be released on bail on furnishing bail bonds of Rs25,000 each.

Besides Aulbur, Debashish Mitra, director (sales and marketing), Uwe Jarosch, director (finance), Puneet Chug, general manager (network development), and Bhishma Patel, general manager (finance), had approached the city court on Monday afternoon seeking bail.

Millennium Motors chairman Dipak Naik has charged that Mercedes-Benz had terminated its dealership contract in November last without prior notification.