SALMAN SKIPS HEARING IN POACHING CASE
JODHPUR: Bollywood actor Salman Khan on Friday skipped a hearing in a local court here in connection with the blackbuck poaching case. The sessions court granted him exemption from appearance for the day’s hearing, following an application by his counsel saying that he is busy in a film shooting. The court is hearing Khan’s plea against the trial court’s April 2018 verdict sentencing him to five years in prison. The sessions court had asked Khan to appear on September 27, failing which his bail plea may be cancelled. NEWDELHI: Fugitive diamond merchant Mehul Choksi on Friday moved a Prevention of Money Laundering Act court in Mumbai, offering to be questioned by Enforcement Directorate (ED) officers in Antigua and Barbuda and requesting that he be allowed to appear before the court through video conferencing.
The development comes after Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne said this week that Indian investigators were free to travel to the island nation to interrogate Choksi, adding that he would be extradited to India as soon as he exhausts his legal options there.
In a plea filed through his lawyer Vijay Aggarwal, Choksi said that “due to his medical conditions, it is medically impossible for him to travel because it will be unbearable, intolerable, unimaginable and difficult for him to travel and doctors have cautioned him from such travel”.
Aggarwal asked the court to direct the ED to conduct investigation/interrogation of Choksi in Antigua and Barbuda and allow him to appear before the court through video-conferencing. He also sought a cancellation of the non-bailable warrants of arrest issued against his client.
Choksi has made such requests in the past as well but the ED had categorically rejected them. The agency, in a counteraffidavit filed in June, had offered to arrange an air ambulance along with a team of experts to bring him safely to India.
The businessman, currently holding citizenship of Antigua, is accused of cheating Punjab National Bank along with his nephew Nirav Modi of ₹13,578 crore. NEW DELHI: Senior advocate RS Cheema asked the Supreme Court on Friday to relieve him of his duties as the special public prosecutor in the case related to alleged irregularities in the allotment of coal blocks, saying the Enforcement Directorate, for which he is arguing in the trial court, has not provided him with an adequate team of lawyers.
Cheema moved a formal application to the effect. He has just one prosecutor to assist him. As many as 20 complaints have been filed by ED before the sessions court, he informed the bench. Cognizance has been taken of only four. He said he was open to continuing as a special counsel for the CBI in the same case.
Justice Gupta agreed with the senior advocate with Cheema. At this, solicitor general, Tushar Mehta, representing the two lawenforcement agencies requested the court not to issue any orders. The bench asked Cheema to continue and said orders on his plea would be given in December, when the matter will be heard next.