PANJIM: A tussle between two companies over a small technicality – a switch, while setting up a power plant, led to the detention of two Indian managers in Iran after cases were foisted on them. With the cases against them now dismissed, the two managers who have spent almost a year there, of the Goan company, Power Engineering of the Pai Kane group would finally be back in the country within a month.
Their client Vazar Jahan”, filed the cases in addition to taking away their passports, to detain the employees of the Goan company because of a dispute over the technicality of commencing their power plant operations. The Indian embassy in Tehran, had, according to the director and head of human capital of the Pai Kane group, had initially refused to intervene , since this was a dispute between two companies where legal cases including one for theft were filed against officials of the Pai Kane Group. However, the courts in Iran have cleared the employees of all charges.
The duo – Vadodara based Sanket Pandya and Delhi-based Mohamed Hussein Khan, junior and senior manager respectively in Power Engineering, left for Iran on November 27, 2013 to replace another group, commission a power plant and then return. However, little did they know that the switch that was fixed on one of the panels as per specifications of the client was calibrated to work till a temperature of minus 5 degrees. On December 5 after everything was set for the plant to begin generating electricity, it began to snow with temperatures reaching minus 15 degrees leading to the non functioning of the switches.
This led to a disagreement between the two companies and the two engineers were stuck in between as the Iranian client got a little rough and took their passports (December 7, 2013) on the pretext of renewing them and then slapped theft charges against then. The Indian duo have been stuck in Iran since then. Both were part of the team sent to Iran for supervision of installation and pre-commissioning of a power plant being set up in Zanjan by the private company.
However, inspite of the company’s proven claims, of having paid their salaries, their hotel expenses and all other expenses during their period of not being allowed to leave Iran, with their passports taken away, the families of the two employees are hurt, angry and frustrated. In fact they have moved the Delhi High Court against the company, leaving the Pai Kane group fighting on two fronts.
“We want them back. We do not want anything else,” Pandya’s brother-in-law Dilip Pathak told Herald.
He says that the company has told him that the charges have been cleared and they had appointed a good lawyer. But finally, this is “all talk” he says, arguing “we want him back.”
Sanket Pandya had also earlier urged the Indian government to facilitate their early and safe return. He had said that his 63-year-old mother Ilaben Pandya had also written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting for his release.
Pandya’s wife Priti had approached Chief Minister Manohar in March this year, seeking help in securing the release of the duo and their return to India. Pathak told Herald that he had met Parrikar in April and appealed to him to help them.
According to reports, Pandya’s wife Priti too has toed the same line saying that they were not sure when her husband and Khan could return home and had threatened to sit on a fast unto death if the company fails to secure the release of her husband and his colleague.
However the failure to get two of its citizens back inspite of the intervention of the Prime Minister, the Chief Minister of Goa and the External Affairs Minister, makes the country cut a sorry figure.
Pandya and Khan’s were part of the team sent to Iran for supervision of installation and pre-commissioning of a power plant being set up in Zanjan by the private company.
