Had notified Gujarat HC against Choksi: Cheated franchisee

A jeweller from Gujarat's Bhavnagar, Digvijay Singh Jadeja, on Friday said that he had notified the Gujarat High Court and the state government against Mehul Choksi, managing director of Gitanjali Gems, in 2015, but nobody heard him back then.

"In 2015, I had notified it to Gujarat High Court and state Government and requested them to seize his passport. Had action been taken then, he wouldn't have escaped today," Jeweller DS Jadeja told ANI.

The Gujarat-based jeweller further claimed that Choksi duped him of Rs 60 crore.

"Mehul Choksi duped me of Rs 60 crore and took Rs 9872 crore illegally from banks," added Jadeja.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of External Affairs has suspended the validity of the passports of businessmen Nirav Deepak Modi and Mehul Chinubhai Choksi, who have been accused of punching a possible $1.77-billion hole in the Punjab National Bank's coffers, with immediate effect on the advice of the Enforcement Directorate.

The proposed suspension of passports of Modi and Choksi comes days after the PNB reported a fraud of Rs 11,400 crore committed by both with the help of employees of the Mumbai branch of the bank.

The fraud was allegedly perpetrated by several PNB employees, including key branch officials, without authorisation, issuing so-called letters of undertaking, or LoUs, (essentially guarantees) that helped Nirav Modi's companies raise credit from other banks. The LoUs, issued when overseas import payments are involved, basically guarantee liability payment by one bank to another on behalf of its client.

The case relates to jeweller Nirav Modi, who was already under investigation following a PNB complaint on January 29 about fraudulent transactions of Rs 280 crore. The bank had said at the time that it was checking if the case was actually bigger.