Mumbai (PTI): Businessmen involved in multi-million dollar scams, such as Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya, were able to flee the country because probe agencies failed to arrest them at the proper time, a special court here said recently.
Special judge M G Deshpande made the remark while hearing a plea of an accused booked under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) seeking modification in his bail condition.
The court on May 29 accepted the plea of Vyomesh Shah, an accused in a money laundering case, to drop the bail condition of getting the court's prior permission to travel abroad.
The detailed order was made available recently.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had argued that allowing Shah's application would give rise to situations like Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya and Mehul Choksi.
Rejecting the probe agency's contention, the judge said, "I thoughtfully examined this argument and felt it necessary to note that all these persons fled because of the failure of the investigating agencies concerned in not arresting them at the proper time."
On the contrary, Shah had appeared before the court responding to the summons, secured bail, and applied many times to travel abroad, he said.
Shah's case cannot be equated with the cases of Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya, Mehul Chokshi etc, the court held.
Diamantaire Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi are prime accused in the multi-crore PNB scam.
Modi is currently serving a prison sentence in the UK, while his uncle lives in Antigua.
Mallya, currently in the UK, is accused in the over 900-crore alleged loan fraud case, being probed by the ED and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
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New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court on Monday sought responses from the Centre and others on a petition seeking quashing of the order blocking YouTube channel '4 PM'.
A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan agreed to hear the plea and issued notices to the Centre and others seeking their responses on the petition.
The plea, filed by Sanjay Sharma who runs the YouTube channel, has sought a direction to the Centre to produce the blocking order with reasons and records, if any, for blocking the channel.
It has also sought a direction to quash the blocking order after calling upon the Centre to produce the blocking order with reasons and records.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the petitioner, said no notice was issued to the petitioner before the blocking order was passed.
"The whole channel is blocked and no reason," Sibal said, adding "the only information I have is from the intermediary".
"Ex-facie it is unconstitutional," he said.
The bench, while issuing notice on the plea, said the matter would be heard next week.
The plea has sought quashing of Rule 16 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009.
Rule 16 says strict confidentiality shall be maintained regarding all the requests and complaints received and actions taken thereof.
The plea has claimed that the order blocking the channel was arbitrary and unconstitutional.