Mehul Choksi on India return: ‘Can’t… passport suspended for security reasons'

Diamantaire Mehul Choksi told a special court that he has not been able to return to India owing to "reasons beyond his control” and therefore the key accused in the multi-crore PNB scam should not be declared a “fugitive economic offender”. Claiming that he did not leave India to avoid criminal prosecution nor is he refusing to return to the country, he said that his passport has been suspended by Indian authorities.

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The claims were made by Mehul Choksi in an application filed before a special PMLA court as he sought directions for summoning documents concerning the suspension of his passport and investigation files of the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) case. Proceedings against the businessman are in relation to ED's plea to declare him a fugitive economic offender- an individual against whom a court in India has issued an arrest warrant over a scheduled offence and he has left India to avoid criminal prosecution or refuses to return to the country.

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The plea noted, “It is the specific case of the present applicant (Choksi) that he has neither left India to avoid criminal prosecution nor is he refusing to return to India to face criminal prosecution, but has been unable to return due to reasons beyond his control."

The plea also said that the the court must summon the investigation file to see if any evidence is available with ED to show that Mehul Choksi was “aware of the alleged bank fraud being unearthed and therefore, left the country to avoid the same”.

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Mehul Choksi and his nephew Nirav Modi are wanted by the ED and the CBI for allegedly defrauding the Punjab National Bank of ₹13,400 crore.