Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi escaped as probe agencies failed to act promptly: Mumbai Court
PTC Web Desk: Fugitive businessmen Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya, and Mehul Choksi fled the country after investigating agencies failed to apprehend them in time, said Mumbai court.
On May 30, Judge MG Deshpande, who was handling a money laundering case, made this point while hearing Vyomesh Shah's request to have his bail conditions relaxed so that he could work abroad. According to Bar and Bench, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) opposed the request, fearing a repeat of the cases involving fugitive businessmen.
The judge stated that the agencies' failure to act promptly enabled these businessmen to flee.
“I thoughtfully examined this argument and felt it necessary to note that all these persons fled because of the failure of the investigating agencies concerned in not arresting them at proper time,” the judge added.
Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya are in the United Kingdom and have been declared Fugitive Economic Offenders (FEOs). Choksi is in Dominica, and the ED wants to declare him a FEO.
Vyomesh Shah, who is accused of money laundering in 2022, has been released on bail but is not permitted to leave the country without court permission. He insisted that frequent travel was necessary for his job. The judge agreed to relax the condition, emphasising that the court failed to fix the ED's initial failures. Shah must notify the ED of his travel plans prior to each trip.
“It is the ED which basically allows such person to be scot free without any apprehensions of his travelling abroad, tampering and hampering evidence, flight risk, apprehension of dealing with complaint and assisting the said process etc. but for the first time when such person appears before the Court all such contentions and objections astonishingly crop up before the Court. So, this Court has repeatedly taken firm stand that, the Court cannot do what the ED basically failed to do,” the Court added.
- PTC NEWS
