Nirav modi referred to as the fugitive diamond merchant and the main accused in the PNB fraud case refuses to return back to India due to safety reasons. Another reason stated for his denial to return is that his case has been politicised. He further notified the court on Saturday that Punjab National Bank had given “colour of criminality” to “usual civil banking transactions”, in order to conceal its low performance.
The reply given by Modi’s lawyer to the ED’s plea to declare the diamond merchant a fugitive under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act (FEOA) before a special court stated that even if being the prime accused of a serious act, as such it was just the “usual civil banking transaction” which was described as “colour of criminality”. As said earlier, the reply asserted that the PNB wanted to evade from its due liability towards its co-bankers and to conceal its low performance. Over and above, it said his case was utilized for political cause and the political parties have “prejudged the issue of his guilt”.
He states that his absence from the country was even before the allegations put forth against him and affirms that ED has attempted to “falsely implicate” him for the misdeeds “backed by shallow claims”.
The ED exclaim that the diamond merchant had not replied to their summons thrice which resulted in the filing of plea under the FEOA. However, Modi says he had given prompt replies to the ED’s summons.
Mehul Choksi his uncle has also pointed out the reason -'fear of mob lynching' for nonattendance before the ED court. Mehul and Nirav Modi had been alleged for cheating the Punjab National Bank of Rs. 14,000 crores by securing the Letters of Understanding (LoU) fraudulently to attain credit overseas. Vijay Mallya was announced as the first fugitive economic offender by the court yesterday, which is handling the Nirav Modi’s case as well.
Courtesy/By: Nikkitha Krishnan
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07 Jan 2019
