Kavita Mankikar, who worked at fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi's company and is also an accused in the ₹6,498 crore Punjab National Bank fraud, on Monday secured bail from a special CBI court. She was not in custody.
Mankikar was arrested in 2018, granted bail later
In 2018, Mankikar, Modi’s executive assistant, was arrested at 8pm. The Bombay High Court had declared her arrest as illegal as being a woman she was arrested after sunset. It had permitted the CBI to rearrest her following proper procedure. She had then moved the special court for bail in 2018. The plea had been pending since then.
'Have not been arrested, attending court regularly'
In her plea seeking bail through Advocate Rahul Agarwal, Mankikar had contended that she has not been arrested till date and is attending court regularly. Special CBI Judge SM Menjoge said in the order that the application is pending since June 1, 2018 and the charge-sheet has been already filed so considerable time has elapsed since the agency responded to her plea. It further noted that she had not been rearrested despite the HC's directive. “Till date she has not been arrested, but she has attended court regularly,” Judge Menjoge noted in the order. The court further added that no purpose would be served by rejecting her bail application at this stage.
