The contempt petition came up for hearing in the special court on Friday last, and is likely to continue this week. The broker has alleged that SCB's false claims resulted in the court awarding him one year's rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1 lakh in the special case number 1 of 1992, for alleged dishonour of four cheques.

The bank had claimed that the four cheques, totalling Rs 78.45 crore, were drawn in its favour by Dalal in discharge of a debt arising out of a difference in contract rate and delivery rate of securities, which Dalal handled for the Bank in late 1991. Dalal had denied any such debt or liability.

Dalal now says the Bank has contradicted itself in acommunication in 1994 to the Central Bureau of Investigation, in exactly the same transactions that SCB was relying on to prove the case against him in 1992.

The second respondent in the contempt petition, one Bratindernath Banerjee, an officer of SCB, had claimed in the special case 1, that the cheques were found accidentally in the drawer of Arvind Mohanlal, manager of the securities division of the bank after the scam broke out in 1992. When the cheques were presented for encashment to Andhra Bank, they were dishonoured on the endorsement: `referred to drawer/not arranged for'.

Dalal claims his requests (in 1992) to SCB, to give him the details of transactions they were claiming these against, were ignored. The plea of difference in contract and delivery rates was also taken only during the trial of that case against him under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act.

Apparently, SCB was relying on deal slips which they claim would show the liability of Dalal towards the difference in thecontract and delivery rate of securities handled by him for SCB.

Though Dalal denied the liability, the court had then held that since no evidence was adduced by Dalal to prove that the liability had been discharged, and since he did give cheques, he could be tried under Section 138. Dalal was convicted and sentenced to one year RI. Now, as the petitioner, Dalal has said that he came across a crucial letter, when the CBI filed a charge-sheet in R C (11) A of 1992, in special case 4 of 1995. The papers of this case were also given to petitioner. On perusal he found one letter dated May 3, 1994, addressed to Bhupendra Kumar, Dy superintendent of CBI, by D S Loveless, special representative of the SCB. A note by the senior manager of the bank's forensic banking team, is appended to the letter. The note details all cheques received or paid by the bank from/to Dalal.

The note reveals that the liabilities as sought to be made out from the deal slips and other documents in the special case number 1, were infact discharged, and not outstanding, when the four cheques were given to SCB, Dalal has claimed. The respondents deliberately, consciously, compulsively and fraudulently misled the court in the earlier case, the petitioner has claimed. The documents available from the records of the case no 4 of 1995 disclose that the cheques were never given towards the `difference', but were for some other purpose, the fact also being supported by correspondence between the bank and the petitioner.