Mumbai: A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Friday issued a request to authorities in Singapore seeking details of the bank account of fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi’s brother-in-law Maiank Mehta, an accused in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam case.
The agency claims that an amount of $30 million was transferred into the Singapore account of Mr Mehta from the jeweller’s Dubai ‘shell company’.
Earlier, the agency had opposed the cancellation of the Look Out Circular (LOC) issued against Mr Mehta and had mentioned this transaction in its response while opposing the relief. Mr Mehta had wanted the LOC cancelled. While the ED had not objected to it, the CBI had done so.
It had further stated in its response that it had served notices to Mr Mehta for providing the statement of account pertaining to the transactions but despite several persuasions, he could not produce the same. It said that due to the absence of the record, the probe on that count is at a standstill.
The CBI, through its prosecutor A Limosin on Friday filed a plea for issuing the Letter of Rogatory (LOR) to Singapore - an official communication for seeking the details. Special CBI Judge SM Menjoge allowed the plea after a hearing. The court also directed that the CBI shall submit a report to the court in respect of the LOR after the completion of its investigation.
The CBI is investigating the cheating and corruption case concerning the bank scam. In the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) money laundering case concerning the same fraud, Mr Mehta and his wife and the businessman’s sister Purvi Mehta, had both turned approvers after making pleas for the same. In the CBI’s case though, Mr Mehta is still an accused. In their plea in the other case, they had offered to make full disclosures of the facts within their knowledge against Mr Nirav Modi and his money laundering transactions and properties and another special court had granted their plea and made them prosecution witnesses in that case.
