Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Amid claims that wanted criminal Mehul Choksi bribed officials and even courts in Antigua and Barbuda (A&B) to avoid extradition to India, the Caribbean island nation’s High Court ruled on Friday that the Indian fugitive New Delhi wants back in an Rs.13,000 crore bank fraud case cannot be removed from that country without a court order, the media reported.
In his civil suit, he urged the court to order an investigation into what he claimed was an inhuman or degrading treatment meted out to him during an attempt for his allegedly forcible removal from Antigua and Barbuda on May 23, 2021.
Recently, INTERPOL removed Choksi’s name from an international Red Corner Notice (RCN) list. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s probe agency investigating the bank fraud cases against him, his nephew Nirav Modi (currently lodged in a London jail and awaiting final court order for his extradition to India), and others, have demanded the RCN’s restoration.
As a claimant, Choksi, 63, argued in the A&B High Court that there is an obligation on the part of the defendants, the Attorney General of Antigua, and the Chief of Police, to carry out a thorough inquiry into that incident, the Dominica-based Nature Isle News reported.
The court prohibited Choksi’s removal from the nation’s territory without a High Court ruling following an inter-party hearing and subject to the claimant exhausting all available legal remedies, including appeals.
Choksi was ‘forcibly’ transported in 2021 to the Commonwealth of Dominica aboard a boat, Nature Isle News reported. He is wanted in India in connection with a Rs 13,000-crore fraud in the Punjab National Bank (PNB).
In a statement, the CBI said it was committed to bringing back fugitives and criminals to India to face the process of criminal justice.
“Systematic steps have been initiated in close coordination with foreign law enforcement agencies for geo-locating and return of wanted criminals and economic offenders. In the last 15 months, over 30 wanted criminals have returned to India,” it said.
The CBI said that a case was registered against Mehul Choksi and others on February 15, 2018, for defrauding Punjab National Bank. In 2022, the probe agency registered five more criminal cases against Mehul Choksi and others for defrauding banks and financial institutions.
In 2018, Mehul Chinubhai Choksi approached the Commission for Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF) making a request for the non-publication of a Red Notice.
The CCF is a separate body within INTERPOL that is not under the control of the INTERPOL Secretariat and is mainly staffed by elected lawyers from different countries. The CCF had studied his request and consulted CBI, before dismissing Choksi’s representation and INTERPOL published a Red Corner Notice, the CBI stated.