Court rejects Purvi Modi’s plea for ED’s intervention in bankruptcy proceedings against Nirav
Mumbai: A special Fugitive Economic Offenders (FEO) court on Monday rejected the plea of Purvi Mehta, the sister of fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi, seeking orders to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to intervene in the bankruptcy proceedings being conducted before a US court against her brother
Mumbai: A special Fugitive Economic Offenders (FEO) court on Monday rejected the plea of Purvi Mehta, the sister of fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi, seeking orders to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to intervene in the bankruptcy proceedings being conducted before a US court against her brother.
Nirav Modi is the prime accused in ₹13,850 crore fraud at the Punjab National Bank (PNB) and was declared a fugitive economic offender in December 2019. In June 2020, a court passed an order of confiscation of all the properties which ED claimed were part of the proceeds of crime and bought using tainted money.
During the confiscation proceedings, Purvi moved a plea in March last year pleading that her properties are also being taken into consideration by a US court in the bankruptcy proceedings initiated against her brother. These properties were attached by ED during the money laundering probe under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
Hence, she urged the court, which is dealing with the confiscation of the attached properties, that the Enforcement Directorate should intervene in the bankruptcy proceedings with regard to her properties valued at around ₹200 crore. Purvi claimed that the bankruptcy proceedings before the US court were overlapping with the present proceedings in India related to her properties.
The ED on the other hand said the agency has already submitted relevant documents to the US court.
Purvi and her husband Maiank, both of whom stay out of the country, had approached the special PMLA court through their lawyers in November 2020 seeking pardon and to turn approvers in the money-laundering case registered against Nirav Modi.
The ED has claimed that Nirav Modi has diverted around ₹1201.18 crore (175.1 USD million) through his sister Purvi. The agency in its chargesheet claimed that Purvi was an active participant in the generation of proceeds of crime and the activity of money laundering. It is claimed that Purvi was a director in Dubai and Hong Kong-based companies which received funds generated through fraudulent Letters of Undertakings obtained by Nirav Modi from the public sector bank.
ED’s money laundering case is based on the case registered by CBI against Nirav Modi. The investigation by CBI revealed that during the period 2011 and 2017, in all 1,214 LoUs of USD 3731110331.56 ( ₹23,780 crore approximately) were fraudulently issued to Diamonds R US, Stellar Diamonds and Solar Exports, out of which aforesaid 150 LoUs remained outstanding – totalling to ₹6,498.20 crore and resulting in loss of ₹6,805.24 crore to PNB.
