The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a petition filed by Pranav Choksi, son of fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi, challenging a decision by National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) to make him a party to its recovery suit, the Times of India reported.
The report further said that a bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, while rejecting the plea, made a sharp oral observation, asking, “Where is your respected father nowadays? The whole country is eagerly waiting to give him a red-carpet welcome.”
Pranav Choksi had approached the court against NSEL’s move to implead him in a 2015 civil suit filed against 50 individuals and entities for recovery of Rs 937 crore, which the exchange claims it was defrauded of.
NSEL has alleged that Pranav Choksi was a beneficiary of trades executed by N K Proteins through its electronic trading platform for spot commodity contracts. The exchange said he was made a party to the suit as he was one of the shareholders of N K Proteins.
The Supreme Court refused to interfere with the exchange’s decision to include him in the recovery proceedings.
Who is Mehul Choksi?
Mehul Choksi is an Indian diamond merchant and the founder of the now-defunct Gitanjali Group, a jewellery retail empire that once had a large presence in India and overseas.
He was a prominent name in the gems and jewellery industry before becoming one of the main accused in a major banking fraud case.
In 2018, Choksi was named as a key accused in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud, one of the biggest financial scams in the country.
Indian investigative agencies alleged that he, along with his nephew Nirav Modi, fraudulently secured thousands of crores of rupees from PNB by using fake Letters of Undertaking issued without proper authorisation.
The total amount involved in the scam is estimated to be over Rs 13,000 crore, with Choksi’s alleged share running into several thousand crores. Following the exposure of the scam, Choksi left India and later surfaced in Antigua and Barbuda, where he had acquired citizenship.
Indian authorities, including the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation, have declared him a fugitive economic offender and have been pursuing his extradition.
Choksi has repeatedly cited health reasons, claiming he is medically unfit to travel, which has led to delays in bringing him back to India to face trial.
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