Centre Receives Rs. 18000 crores From Mega Money Launderers
Last updated on February 24th, 2022 at 05:14 am
Centre has some good news. It has told the Supreme Court, that the big goons of India have finally returned the money they owed to the Indian coffers. This includes Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and his relative uncle Mehul Choksi for starters.
As of now, the total proceeds towards the crimes in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) cases pending before the top court had initially amounted to Rs 67,000 crore. Currently, Rs. 18,000 crores have been returned to the banks in the cases of fugitive industrialist Vijay Mallya, and other businessmen Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, who faced charges of loan frauds and money laundering.
Appearing on behalf of the Centre was solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who submitted before a bench presided over by Justice A.M. Khanwilka. This move seems to have come after the huge shipyard scandal that pointed fingers over the huge losses that public and private sector banks are bearing over fraud done by millionaire businessmen of India.
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Cases have remained unsolved due to states not giving in clearance for full-fledged investigations to be kicked off by the CBI.
“As on date, as many as 4700 cases are being investigated by the Directorate of Enforcement and the number of the cases taken up for investigation each year in the last five years varied from 111 cases in 2015-16 to 981 in 2020-21,” Mehta said. He also made his submission before the court which is examining a batch of petitions, challenging the wide scope of powers available to the ED for search, seizure, investigation, and attachment of proceeds of crime under the law.
Vijay Mallya, who is fighting to stop is extradition from UK to India, owes 17 Indian banks Rs 9,000 crore. Diamond merchants Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi are accused of defrauding the Punjab National Bank of Rs 14,000 crore. In March 2018, a special PMLA court had issued non-bailable warrants against the duo.
