According to CBI sources, there is no extradition treaty between India and Switzerland but the request of the Indian government can be entertained under the Swiss-British Extradition Treaty which is still applicable to such requests emanating from India.
The arrest of the two Karsan executives comes immediately after CBI director Joginder Singh had told reporters on Monday that a major breakthrough in the NFL-urea case was likely in the next two days.
Karsan Ltd was to have supplied National Fertilisers Limited (NFL) with two lakh tonnes of urea following an agreement signed last year but after Rs 133 crore was paid into the account of the firm in Pictet Bank in Switzerland, urea did not reach the Indian ports according to the schedule.
Two of the accused in the NFL-urea import scam, Sanjeeva Rao and Prakash Chandra, were granted bail by the designated CBI court on Monday after the CBI failed to file the chargesheet in the case in the stipulated 90 days. Before the release of Chandra and Sanjeeva Rao, NFL officials C K Ramkrishna and D S Kanwar and the Karsan representative in India, Sambasiva Rao, were granted bail by the same court on the same rounds.