CBI court grants interim stay on proceedings against Mehul Choksi in bank fraud case

Mumbai: A Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Friday granted an interim stayed on the trial court proceedings before Magistrate court against wanted jeweller Mehul Choksi and other accused persons, Aniyath Nair and Vipul Chitalia in a bank fraud case probed by the CBI in relation to loan granted by Canara Bank to a company, Bazel Jewellery.

In April, CBI had filed a chargesheet before the Esplanade court in the said matter alleging cheating, diversion of funds and misappropriation of funds by Mehul Choksi and other officials of the company.

Choksi and his nephew, Nirav Modi, are the main accused in the PNB case being probed by both, the ED and CBI for allegedly causing a loss of over Rs..25,000 crores to the bank. Choksi, is currently detained in a prison in Belgium where the police arrested him on India’s request. He has contested the extradition.


Advocate Vijal Aggarwal appearing for Mehul Choksi and others argued that the order summoning the accused persons is a non-reasoned and mechanical order as the perusal of the same shows that the Magistrate has not applied its mind and not given reasons for summoning the Accused persons as to how offence is made out against them.

He further argued that the word used in Section 204 Cr.P.C. which deals with issuance of process/summons against an accused is ‘sufficient reasons’ and the said reasons have not been stated by the Magistrate in its order.

He further argued that the Magistrate has taken cognizance and summoned the accused persons ‘with lightning speed’ on the same day it has received the chargesheet along with documents running into thousands of pages filed in trunks which suggests that the said order has been passed in a mechanical manner.

Counsel appearing for CBI sought time to file reply to the Revision petitions filed by Mehul Choksi and others to reply to contentions raised by them.

The Court granted time to CBI to file reply to the petition filed by l Choksi and others and posted the matter on August 8.