PNB fraud: Court issues non-bailable warrants against Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi

A special court on Saturday issued non-bailable warrants (NBWs) against diamond traders Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi in the alleged Rs 12,700 crore Punjab National Bank scam.

The court, set up under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), issued the NBWs on applications filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), one of the agencies probing the bank fraud cases registered last month.

Reacting to the development, Nirav Modi’s lawyer Vijay Aggarwal said, “We are considering to challenge the order in HC on behalf of Nirav Modi. But final decision shall be taken only upon seeing the order. We have not even been given a copy of the application that ED filed.”

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The ED had earlier issued summonses to Modi and Choksi, both key accused in the scam cases, asking them to appear before the central agency.

However, the two diamond traders, who are said to have left the country, had failed to appear before the ED, promoting the agency to move the PMLA court for issuance of NBWs against them.

On February 27, the ED had moved the court seeking an NBW against Modi.

The agency had told the court that it had issued three summonses to Modi to appear before it.

“We issued three summonses to Choksi. He neither responded to those summonses nor appeared before the agency,” special ED prosecutor Hiten Venegaonkar had told the special court presided over by Judge M S Azmi here on March 1.