NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday sought responses of 567 mill owners in Bihar, accused of defalcating Rs 490 crore worth custom milled rice to state food and civil supplies corporation in 2011-12, to a state government’s plea that they should either furnish bank guarantees to secure the defalcated amount or face arrest.Under the scheme then prevalent, the mill owners used to take paddy from corporation and return custom milled rice equivalent to 67% of the paddy taken by them. The Bihar government through additional standing counsel Keshav Mohan told a bench of Justices U U Lalit and Vineet Saran that 28,258 tons of custom milled rice were not returned by the accused persons and that the state has suffered a loss of Rs 490.73 cr.The bench, while appreciating the steps taken by the state government against officials of the corporation who were allegedly hand-in-glove with the rice millers, sought responses of the 567 accused persons as to why they should not face parity in furnishing bank guarantee like the other accused in paddy scam for the years 2012-13 and 2013-14 to remain on bail. Mohan said the state government was of the view that the accused in the year 2011-12 should also be liable to arrest if they failed to furnish bank guarantee equivalent to the defalcated amount.The bench directed the state government to publish the notice issued to all accused mill owners in three widely circulated newspapers in Bihar, one in English daily and two vernacular. It posted further hearing on April 27.Mohan gave district-wise details of number of accused and the amount defalcated by non-return of milled rice. Major scam centres included: Buxar district - defalcation of Rs 77 crore by 99 accused; Rohtas district - Rs 74 crore by 78 accused; Kaimur - Rs 73 crore by 121 accused; Nalanda - Rs 36 crore by 21 accused; Patna - Rs 30 crore by 20 accused; Mujaffarpur - Rs 30 crore by five accused.SC had three years ago directed setting up of special courts at Patna, Gaya, Chapra, Darbhanga and Purnea for trial of accused mill owners. For the millers accused in the paddy scam for the year 2012-13 and 2013-14, the Patna HC had granted bail to the accused if they deposited 10-20% of the alleged defalcation amount. However, the SC had secured the interest of the state government by directing that the accused on bail would have to furnish bank guarantee equivalent to the alleged defalcation amount and warned that failure to do so would make their bail/anticipatory bail liable to cancellation.