PNB scam: Employee of Nirav Modi's firm gets bail four years after filing plea

A special CBI court granted bail to Kavita Mankikar an employee of diamond merchant Nirav Modis firm who is accused in the Punjab National Bank scam case more than four years after she filed her pleaSpecial judge SJ Menjoge in his order said that the Bombay High Court had already held that her arrest was illegal and the Central Investigation Agency was given the liberty to rearrest following the due process of lawTill date she has not been arrested but has been attending this court regularly No purpose would be served by rejecting her bail the special court saidAlso readMan seeks Rs 36 lakh compensation alleges negligence at BMCrun Covid19 centreIn the bail application filed through advocates Rahul Agarwal and Jasmin Purani Mankikar had cited the high court orderShe had prayed for bail stating that the chargesheet has been filed in the case and the investigation was overThe probe agency had however opposed the plea on the ground that the further investigation was still underway in India and abroadThe court after hearing both sides allowed her bail pleaThe special judge noted that the application has been pending since June 2018The chargesheet has been filed and considerable time has elapsed since the date of filing of reply to the bail plea by the CBI the court said but she has not been rearrested until nowIn a petition before the high court Mankikar had claimed that she was arrested by the CBI at 8 pm on February 20 2018 contrary to the provision of law which says a woman cannot be arrested after sunsetThe accused was in jail for almost three months before the high court had declared her arrest illegal in May that yearThe high court had then directed the probe agency to pay Mankikar a compensation of Rs 50000 for the illegal arrestMankikar was Nirav Modis executive assistant and authorised signatory of three of his group firms iquest Diamond R US Stellar Diamond and Solar ExportsAccording to the CBI Mankikar had fraudulently signed the applications for issuance of letters of understanding LoUOn January 31 2018 the CBI had registered a case against Modi his uncle Mehul Choksi the owner of Gitanjali Gems and several others including PNB officialsIn its FIR the CBI had listed eight fraudulent transactions worth more than Rs 280 croreBut based on further complaints from the bank the agency said the quantum of amount in the first FIR was more than Rs 6498 crore involving 150 LoUs allegedly issued fraudulentlyThe remaining 150 fraudulent LoUs worth more than Rs 4886 crore issued for Gitanjali Group of companies were part of the second FIR registered later by the agency against Choksi and his companies Gitanjali Gems Nakshatra Brands and GiliThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever