The Delhi High Court on Friday issued a notice to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on a plea of Diamantaire Nirav Modi's uncle and business partner Mehul Choksi's firm Gitanjali Gems, seeking quashing of a money laundering case against the company.

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The court has sought a reply from the agency by April 11.

The PNB in February detected the scam, wherein Modi and Choksi had allegedly cheated the bank to the tune of Rs. 114 billion, with the purported involvement of a few employees of the bank.

The scam, which reportedly began in 2011, was detected in the third week of January this year, after which the PNB officials reported it to the concerned agencies.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) registered the money laundering case against Nirav Modi and others on the basis of a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) FIR.

Currently, the probe agencies are investigating the matter and have also seized many properties of Modi and Choksi. 

Meanwhile, India has asked authorities in Hong Kong to arrest jeweller Nirav Modi, one of the main suspects in a $2-billion fraud at state-run Punjab National Bank, the government said, suggesting it believes the fugitive is in the Chinese territory.

The whereabouts of Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, the other person accused in India's biggest banking fraud at the country's second-largest state lender, have been unknown since the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) launched an investigation in February.

"The ministry has sought the provisional arrest of Nirav Deepak Modi by the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, People's Republic of China," junior foreign minister V.K. Singh told parliament on Thursday.