The Guptas want to question Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in court. The family believe this will punch holes in Gordhan's explosive affidavit that details a list of allegedly suspicious transactions which led to banks closing the Guptas' accounts.Gert van der Merwe, an attorney for the family, intends to petition the courts for the matter to go to trial. This would give Van der Merwe the chance to cross-examine Gordhan about the minister's affidavit.Gordhan approached the courts last week, seeking an application to have a judge declare that he had no authority to engage the banks over their decision to shut the accounts.story_article_left1"It becomes more and more relevant that there is a severe factual dispute, and I will in all likelihood cause the matter to be referred for trial," said Van der Merwe, who will oppose Gordhan's application."The matter must be put to trial so we can call witnesses to give their statements under oath."Van der Merwe intends to serve a request for further particulars on the Financial Intelligence Centre as well as the four major banks that closed the accounts in April .He said this would give him the ammunition he needed to tackle Gordhan."As soon as I get those papers I will be in a position to compile my response, but I think I'll have to pull some teeth to get this."He said that once he had the papers, he would call Gordhan to cross-examine him in court."I would like to ask, 'How can you say I [that is, the Gupta family] have been suspicious in my transactions if these are the facts? Tell me how can you say that?' And that's going to be uncomfortable if my version is correct of course," he said.In his application last week Gordhan disclosed that he had been placed under considerable pressure by President Jacob Zuma's friends to engage the banks, despite having been given two legal opinions that said he had no power to do so.Gordhan also said that the FIC had received a list of 72 suspicious Gupta transactions totalling R6.8-billion. These had been recorded by the banks over four years. The disclosure led to attacks on Gordhan by the Gupta family, their legal counsel and Gupta supporters. story_article_right2Lawyers for the Guptas argued that Gordhan was being malicious in his affidavit. They said they did not understand why the transactions had been considered suspicious because no reasons for this had been given.This week, three of the four major banks - Standard Bank, Nedbank and Absa - indicated they would not oppose Gordhan's application.Absa said on Friday that it would file an explanatory affidavit in support of the application.Standard Bank said it was taking legal advice on whether to file an affidavit.Van der Merwe said the position taken by the banks could mean that they had a responsibility to provide reasons for terminating the accounts.On Friday, the Treasury said it noted the "numerous attacks" by the lawyers representing the Gupta company Oakbay. It said the Treasury did not want to conduct the case in the court of public opinion."We welcome the announcement by Oakbay respondents that they intend to oppose the application after their unsuccessful attempt to coerce the minister into withdrawing the matter," the statement said...