The strange case of Shyamsunder Agrawal and Deepak Raheja, the two Indian businessman who have caused a rumpus between Beijing and New Delhi, has taken another odd turn. We wrote about the confused details in January, and have become none the clearer about the truth since, but in short, the two were facing some rough local justice in Yiwu, the electronics components trading town, in connection with some unpaid bills before Indian consulate staff intervened to have them removed to Shanghai, where the case could be sorted out in the courts.
The two have since had their passports returned but are barred from leaving the country until the outstanding debt of $1.6 million is cleared. (They claim it is their employer, who has reportedly absconded to his native Yemen, who is responsible.) The Indian diplomatic service has said it can no longer afford to pay for the hotel. Indian press reports say the pair have been thrown out on the street and have gone on hunger strike, demanding to be repatriated. One report says they have threatened suicide if their demand is not met within a week. Chinese officials are insisting they can’t leave the country until the debt is cleared one way or another, as the Shanghai court has ordered though it has yet to make its final ruling.
There may be no greater import to this case than it shows how the civil legal system, for all its recent improvement, remains ill-equipped to handle a case as messy as this. It also throws a light on the realities of conducting commerce in China, especially away from the bright lights of the big international cities and sharp suits of the lawyers and their contracts. This Bystander would wager, with low knowledge but high confidence, that there wasn’t much paperwork around the original transactions. What has been produced in court, the pair say, they signed later and under duress.
China Bystander 