India lets two billionaire brothers leave

The Hinduja brothers are charged with receiving illegal kickbacks in the Bofors arms scandal

In this story: Face trial U.K. controversy RELATED STORIES, SITES

NEW DELHI, India -- India's highest court has ruled that two of three billionaire brothers are free to leave the country.

Police charged the three Hinduja brothers last October with receiving illegal kickbacks from Sweden's Bofors in a $1.2-billion artillery sale to the Indian army in 1986.

The three Indian-born brothers, now foreign nationals, appealed to the highest court after lower courts refused them permission to leave the country on the grounds they might not return.

The Supreme Court on Saturday allowed two of the brothers -- Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja -- to remain abroad until August 20 after they furnished bank guarantees of 150 million rupees each.

The third brother, Prakash Hinduja, must stay in the country as an additional guarantor.

"Any violation of the conditions, if they do not return or something else like this, then the bail is likely to be cancelled," Natarajan said.

The brothers, who were grilled for more than a week by the CBI earlier this year, deny any wrongdoing.

Face trial

A lawyer for the brothers has said they have 100 billion Indian rupees ($2.13 billion) worth of in investments in India and were ready to give bank guarantees to assure they would return to India to face trial.

The brothers' business interests span media, banking, oil and chemicals.

The three brothers agreed to return to India in January after the CBI promised not to arrest them.

Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja are British citizens while the third brother, Prakash Hinduja, is a Swiss national.

U.K. controversy

Peter Mandelson was cleared of any wrongdoing

One brother, Srichand Hinduja, was also at the center of a recent controversy in Britain.

Allegations surfaced that Prime Minister Tony Blair's closest political ally, Peter Mandelson, had acted improperly in an application for a British passport by the business tycoon.

Mandelson quit the cabinet over the issue but an official British inquiry cleared him in March of any wrongdoing.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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