CBI Files Fresh FIR Against Mehul Choksi For Duping Govt-Owned IFCI Of Rs 22 Crore

The CBI and ED, which have recorded separate charge sheets for the case, are trying for his extradition.

Mehul Choksi, Managing Director Gitanjali Group during an interview (Source: Getty)

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case of fraud against fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi and his company Gitanjali Gems for defrauding the state-owned Industrial Finance Corporation of India Limited (IFCI) to the tune of Rs 22 crore between 2014-18.

According to the CBI FIR, IFCI Limited relied on representations, assurances and undertakings of GGL and Choksi. Apart from this, the value of the pledged jewelery was assessed by valuers like Surajmal Lallu Bhai & Co, Narendra Jhaveri, Pradeep Shah and Shrenik Shah. It was alleged that loans were disbursed on the basis of two times security cover against pledge of shares, diamond and gold studded jewellery, which was valued by reputed valuers.

“It also came to the light that the diamonds were of low-quality laboratory prepared chemical vapour diamonds and other inferior colour stones and not real gemstones,” CBI said in the FIR, as reported by Hindustan Times.

IFCI alleged that Choksi "with dishonest and fraudulent intention colluded with the valuers and got the valuation of the pledged jewels done with exorbitant and inflated value".

Choksi, who is needed in India by the CBI and the ED in the Rs 13,500 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) misrepresentation case, had disappeared from Dominica on May 23, last year igniting a monstrous manhunt.

He was caught in Dominica on May 26.

A Dominican court had restrained his deportation in the wake of hearing a habeas corpus filed by Choksi's lawyers.

Choksi has been living in Antigua and Barbuda since January 4, 2018, days before the CBI enrolled the instance of bank misrepresentation against him and his nephew, absconding diamantaire Nirav Modi, among a few others.

The CBI and ED, which have recorded separate charge sheets for the case, are trying for his extradition.

On April 11, Subhash Shankar, a close aide of Nirav Modi has been extradited to Mumbai from Cairo by the CBI regarding the PNB misrepresentation case.

Shankar was DGM Finance in Nirav Modi's organisation. A red corner notice was issued against him.