Centre trying to save Choksi, alleges AAP

New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday accused the BJP-led Centre of trying to save fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi after his name was removed from the Interpol database of Red Notices. Choksi is wanted in a Rs 13,000 crore bank fraud in Punjab National Bank and is holed in Antigua and Barbuda after fleeing from India in 2018. AAP Rajya Sabha MP and spokesperson Raghav Chadha claimed that Choksi's name was removed from the Interpol's Red Notices as Indian probe agencies failed to provide "concrete evidence" of the charges slapped on him. Choksi had managed to obtain citizenship of Antigua as the BJP-led Centre issued a no objection certificate for this, Chadha alleged.

"The BJP is giving red carpet treatment to fugitive Mehul Choksi and trying to save him," Chadha told a press conference. "While the government of India had issued a no objection certificate to Mehul Choksi to enable him to become citizen of Antigua earlier, the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation failed to provide concrete evidence against him resulting which his name has been removed from the Red Notices list," the AAP leader alleged.

The name of Choksi is understood to have been removed from the Interpol database of Red Notices on the basis of his plea to the Lyon-headquartered agency, people in the know of the development said. The CBI has asked the Commission for Control of Interpol's Files (CCF) for restoration of Red Notice against the fugitive diamantaire, the agency said in a statement on Tuesday. The Interpol had opened a Red Notice against Choksi in 2018 on a request from the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate. His appeals against the decision were rejected in 2020.

Red Notice is the highest level of alert by the 195-member strong International Police cooperation organisation Interpol to locate and provisionally arrest a fugitive pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action. In 2022, nearly a year after his alleged abduction attempt, he approached the CCF, a separate body within Interpol that is not under the control of Interpol Secretariat and is mainly staffed by elected lawyers from different countries "to revise its earlier decision of 2020", the agency said. "...based on mere imaginary conjunctures and unproven surmises, a five member CCF chamber, has taken a decision on deletion of Red Notice, communicated in November, 2022," the agency said. It said the CCF has subsequently clarified to the CBI that its decision in no manner has any determination on any guilt or innocence of Mehul Chinubhai Choksi for crimes he remains charged in India.