Lawyer argued that CBI tried to shoot from the shoulder of the judge
Mumbai, July 13 (IANS)| A trial court here has granted bail to Dhanesh Vrajlal Sheth, managing director of three firms accused in the multi-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case and a close aide of fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi. Sheth’s lawyer Vijay Aggarwal, during the hearing of the case on Monday, argued that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was trying to “shoot the judge in the shoulder”.
He said that in this case supplementary charge sheet was filed by CBI, court had issued summons and cognizance was taken on June 15 this year. They argued that the court had also issued summons to Sheth, the managing director of Nakshatra Brands Ltd, and as per such summons, he appeared and filed a bail application before the court. Agarwal vehemently argued that the investigation in the present case has been completed and chargesheet has been filed without arrest of the accused person, showing that there was no need for custodial interrogation of Sheth.
This has come as yet another relief to the accused, as Nitin Prem Shahi, Assistant Finance Executive, Gitanjali Gems Ltd and Anany Sivaraman Nairpar, AGM of Gitanjali Jewels, are also actively involved in issuing LoUs with the main accused without approval from PNB. was alleged to have been involved. He got bail in 2018, while Choksi is still in custody in Dominica. Last month, the CBI in its supplementary chargesheet in the PNB scam had accused Choksi of criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence and cheating.
Choksi is currently in the custody of the Dominican police on charges of illegal entry into the Caribbean nation. The Dominica High Court had on Monday granted him bail on medical grounds. The CBI chargesheet also revealed that Choksi had told his associates that they might get into trouble with the Enforcement Directorate (ED). This is two months before Choksi and his nephew Nirav Modi fled India in January 2018, months before the case was registered against him. The chargesheet states that Choksi had conspired with the employees of PNB to issue 165 LoUs (Letters of Undertaking) and not 142 LoUs as alleged by the bank in its complaint.
The CBI chargesheet claimed that none of these LoUs were entered into the core system of the bank as Choksi and his associates had paid bribes to the bank employees. The CBI also found that 347 FLCs (foreign letters of credit) were issued to foreign banks on behalf of Mehul Choksi’s firms between 2014 and 2016. Of these, 88 FLCs were issued in 2014, followed by 143 in 2015 and 116 in 2016, the chargesheet said. The FLCs were issued in favor of Choksi’s firms Gilli India Limited, Geetanjali Exports Corporation Limited, Nakshatra Brands Limited and Asmi Jewelery India Limited.
(Disclaimer: This news has been published directly from news agency’s Syndicate feed. It has not been edited by AnyTV News team.)
