In a move that could be seen as arm-twisting by the British government, the Serious Fraud Office in that country has opened a criminal inquiry into Tata Steel’s operations on grounds of falsification of product composition.

According to a report in the British daily The Telegraph , police are examining allegations that staff at the company’s office in Britain may have falsified certificates detailing the composition of the product before they were sold. The inquiry is centred around the group’s site in Yorkshire, the report claimed.

This comes barely days after Tata Steel announced its plan to sell its struggling Port Talbot plant in Wales, and could serve as a dampener to the Tatas’ plans.

UK’s Business Secretary Sajid Javid was in Mumbai on Wednesday in an attempt to cobble together a deal to avert a closure of the plant or ensure minimal job losses. Javid met Tata Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry on Wednesday. Tata Steel has put the loss-making steel Port Talbot plant up for sale, but insiders feel the plant will eventually be shut down as it has not attracted much interest from buyers, except from Sanjeev Gupta-owned Liberty Group.

Gupta, however, wants to shut down blast furnaces and instead recycle steel.

Such a transition, which would enable the company produce steel from scrap sourced domestically, would take about 18 months and involve re-training existing workers. Currently, the Port Talbot unit incurs a loss of £1 million a day.

Tata Steel has not provided details of how it plans to go through with the sale.

Despite the headwinds, the company’s stock price has remained stable since news of the sale emerged on March 31.

The stock has since then gained 0.75 per cent (although volumes have more than halved), compared with the 2.4 per cent fall in the Nifty 50 over the same period. The stock’s current market price, at ₹322.1, is just 19 per cent short of its 52-week high of ₹384.5.

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