No proof given by ED to declare Choksi a fugitive, says lawyer
MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has not brought on record material documents in the proceedings required to get diamond merchant Mehul Choksi declared as a fugitive economic offender (FEO), the lawyer of the diamantaire has argued in a special Mumbai court.
ED had in July 10, 2018 approached the special court to declare Choksi, who is currently residing in a Caribbean country, to declare him a fugitive under the FEO Act, which would enable it to confiscate his properties. Choksi, who fled India in 2018, is accused in the ₹12, 500 crore Punjab National Bank scam.
In December 2019, a Mumbai court declared the scam’s co-accused and Choksi’s relative, diamond merchant Nirav Modi, as a FEO on a similar plea by ED, which has probed the case’s money-laundering aspect since February 2018 on the basis of an FIR by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The CBI’s probe has looked into aspects of the scam related to the alleged offences of criminal conspiracy, cheating and corruption under the various provisions of the Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act. The FEO Act came into being in August 2018.
Choksi cannot be declared a FEO as the ED could not bring on record material documents to
establish that he had left the country in January 2018 to avoid prosecution, his counsel Vijay Aggarwal argued on Friday before the special court. The diamantaire had no intention to leave the country to avoid prosecution, Aggarwal claimed.
Choksi did not come under the ambit of the definition in the FEO Act as he neither left the country to avoid criminal prosecution, nor is he refusing to return back to India to face criminal prosecution, the lawyer argued.
There is no material on record to show that in January 2018, Choksi was aware he would be facing criminal prosecution as at the time no case was registered nor any summons issued to him to join any investigation, Aggarwal argued.
Choksi left the country for “medical treatment in the month of January 2018”, which was prior to the registration of a case by CBI on February 15, 2018, and the registration of an Enforcement Case Information Report by ED a day later on February 16, 2018, Aggarwal further argued.