CBI books fugitive Mehul Choksi for criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence in fresh chargesheet

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a supplementary chargesheet against diamantaire Mehul Choksi and the other 21 accused in the PNB bank fraud case, in which the fugitive has been charged with destruction of evidence. According to reports, the CBI had filed a chargesheet against 18 accused, including Mehul Choksi; however, in the supplementary chargesheet, the federal agency names four more accused, along with the previous 18 accused. Among the 21 people named in the chargesheet include former officials of Gitanjali and Punjab National Bank.

The chargesheet was filed on June 10, under Section 120B r/w 477-A, 201 Indian Penal Code and Section 7 of PC Act. 

The two of four accused, who have been named in the chargesheet by the CBI are Sagar Sawant and Sanjay Prasad. Both are PNB Employees and two private people, Dhanesh Seth and Sunil Verma, who were employees of Mehul Choksi. Sunil Verma is the former international head of the Gitanjali Group of Companies.

The CBI found out during the investigation that 165 LoU (Letter of Understaking) and 58 FLC (Foreign Letter Credit) were issued by the PNB bank, Brady House and these two named officials of the bank helped Choksi to get these LoU and FLC. Officials of PNB took illegal gratification for issuing the LoU and FLC.

CBI had registered the case on February 15, 2018 against Mehul Choksi, his companies, 10 Directors and officials of PNB bank on the complaint of bank itself. It was alleged that accused persons had hatched criminal conspiracy and defrauded PNB to the tune of Rs 7080.86 crore by fraudulently issuing letters of undertaking to overseas banks for obtaining buyers credit and also issuing foreign letter of credit in favour of the three companies of Mehul Choksi without any sanctioned limit or cash margin and without making entries in the CBS system of the bank. 

Investigation revealed that during the period from 2015 to 2017, accused officials of PNB issued large no of LoU and FLC in a conspiracy with Mehul Choksi.

Mehul Choksi fled from the country before being arrested. Choksi already had citizenship of Antigua, so he escaped to the island and hid there until he was caught and arrested in Domica for entering illegally into the country.