Mehul Choksi challenges ED bid to tag him fugitive offender

Diamond merchant Mehul Choksi, a key accused in the $2 billion Punjab National Bank fraud case, has moved the Bombay High Court seeking dismissal of the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) application for declaring him a fugitive economic offender (FEO).

Since Choksi is currently detained in a prison in Belgium where the police arrested him on India's request, he is already in the constructive custody of Indian investigating agencies and hence the proceedings should be dropped against him, his counsel Vijay Aggarwal argued in the court Monday.

An FEO tag is necessary for the ED to attach his foreign assets.

Choksi and his nephew, Nirav Modi, are the main accused in the PNB case being probed by the ED and CBI. It has been over a year since the ED filed an application before the court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act seeking to declare the two accused fugitive economic offenders. However, arguments are yet to commence owing to various pleas filed by Modi and Choksi in various courts contesting the ED application.

A court at Antwerp that had ordered the arrest of Choksi following India's request for his extradition, held that the charges of fraud, criminal conspiracy and criminal breach of trust levelled against him were punishable in Belgium, according to court documents accessed by ET. However, the charge of causing evidence of the crime to disappear cannot be tried as it isn't punishable in Belgium, the court held in its ruling on November 25 last year.