Indonesian police to release Jain and Malhotra of Polaris soon

Venkatachari Jagannathan
19 December 2002

Mumbai: The two Polaris Software Lab officials — chairman and managing director and CEO Arun Jain and senior vice-president Rajiv Malhotra — are likely to be released by the Indonesian police shortly, indications available to the Indian government suggest.

On 19 December 2002, Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha raised the issue with his Indonesian counterpart, Noor Hasan Werajuda. The issue of the arrest was also raised in the Lok Sabha.

The two were arrested by the Jakarta police on 13 December on a complaint lodged by Bank Artha Graha, Polaris’ client. The Polaris officials had gone to Jakarta to sort out a dispute with the Indonesian bank.

It is learnt that the bank, dissatisfied with Polaris’ work, had served the termination notice on 27 November 2002, for which the Chennai company replied on 3 December 2002 expressing its willingness to discuss the issue in person.

On learning that Bank Artha Graha president Anton Hudyana will be present at the discussions, Jain decided to lead the four-member Polaris team. The happenings thereafter seem straight out a potboiler.

According to Rajeev Arora and Chander Singh, the other two senior vice-presidents and part of the Polaris team, Jain and Malhotra were detained by the Jakarta police for 26 hours before being released — the meeting with the bank officials was originally planned for Wednesday, 11 December 2002.