Mumbai court pulls up ED over failure to catch Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya & Mehul Choksi

Mumbai: A special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court pulled up the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for its failure to catch high profile accused Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya and Mehul Choksi, during a plea hearing challenging bail conditions imposed by court.

During the hearing, court allowed chartered account Vyomesh Shah's plea, to drop the prior permission of the court to travel abroad.

Shah is accused of laundering money for Nihal Garware of Garware Industries, who was arrested last year for causing a loss of Rs100 crore to J&K Bank through a property deal in BKC.

Shah had moved the special court seeking a modification of the bail order wherein he was asked to not leave the country without the permission of the court.

Shah pleaded that his work is such that he needs to travel to various countries in search of clients and work and it is not feasible for him to seek permission of the court each time.

The plea was opposed by the ED prosecutor who contended that such blanket permission cannot be given, and that it would give rise to a situation akin to the cases of businessmen Nirav Modi, Mallya and Choksi.

Anguished special judge MG Deshpande, criticising ED for its approach observed that “all these persons fled because of the failure of the investigating agencies concerned in not arresting them at proper time”.