The Delhi High Court Monday allowed A.E. Pinto, one of the accused in the Rs.1.33 billion ($30.3 million) urea scam case to travel to London to accompany his wife who is to undergo an operation for cancer.

Judge S.K. Aggarwal asked counsel for Pinto, a Brazilian citizen, to arrange two bank guarantees of Rs.2 million each and said he would thereafter be free to go abroad.

The court gave Pinto time till Sep 15 to arrange the bank guarantees.

It put certain conditions on Pinto while allowing him to visit London. The court said he would close the examination of defence witnesses and would not cross-examine them.

It further said Pinto would not dispute his identity given by defence witnesses during their evidence.

Pinto would be represented by his counsel in his absence and would appear before the court as and when required. The trial of the case is going on in the court of A.K. Garg, the special judge for Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) cases at Tis Hazari courts here.

India's national Fertilisers Limited (NFL) had entered a contract for the import of 200,000 tonnes of urea with the Turkish firm Karsan in 1995 but it failed to supply the urea within the specified period.

The CBI later found huge kickbacks were paid to people in India by Karsan, which allegedly did not make any effort to fulfil its contract.

Pinto was arrested in connection with the case in London on the request of Indian authorities. Pinto allegedly negotiated on behalf of Karsan to clinch the deal.