A special court in Mumbai issued non-bailable warrants against absconding diamond traders Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi on Saturday, 3 March.
Acting on a petition filed by the Enforcement Directorate, the special court issued the warrant against the diamantaire named in the over Rs 11,000 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case.
The warrants have been issued by the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court which was approached by the ED after Modi, his wife Ami and Choksi did not respond to summons issued by the Directorate.
On Monday, the court had allowed the central agency’s plea seeking issuance of Letters Rogatory (LRs) to six countries for obtaining information about the overseas businesses and assets of the diamantaire.
Special PMLA Court Judge MS Azmi had heard the arguments of ED’s special counsel Hiten Venegoankar on the agency’s plea seeking issuance of the warrants against Nirav Modi, who is believed to be in the US.
The court gave its judgement after hearing Modi’s lawyer Ashul Agarwal on Wednesday on the issue of his locus standi to address the court in the absence of his client.
Modi has refused to join the investigation into the massive fraud that has jolted the nation.
The CBI issued three summonses to Modi – the last two via email.
Modi responded to only two of them – the second and the third. In both the responses he excused himself from becoming part of the probe citing “business commitments” and “security”.
(With inputs from agencies.)