The Dominica High Court of Justice which was hearing the Mehul Choksi case has adjourned the case hearing on Thursday. Mehul Choksi will continue to remain in Police custody in Dominica. The next hearing date has not been fixed yet.
In the meantime, both sides will decide on the pleadings and arguments.
Mehul Choksi, who was arrested on May 23 in Dominica for alleged illegal entry into the country, had filed an application in the Dominican High Court challenging his arrest and the charges.
This case was heard on June 2 and Choksi’s advocates invoked habeas corpus and said as per Dominican laws, he should have been produced in front of a magistrate within 72 hours of his arrest.
The judge asked the state to produce him in a lower court before 4 pm and the charges of ‘illegal entry’ be read out to him. The High Court hearing was adjourned and scheduled for hearing today (June 3) at 6:30 pm IST.
However, Choksi’s legal team also apprised the court that the businessman was a citizen of Antigua, and was currently battling two cases pertaining to his extradition and revocation of citizenship, so he should be repatriated to the island. Justice Stephenson heard the matter via video-conferencing with the businessman attending virtually from the hospital where he was admitted recently.
The beleaguered businessman’s lawyers said that he does not feel safe in police custody and that he should be sent back to Antigua, as per local news reports. He also said he would pay for his security and raised the issue of injury marks found on his body.
Mehul Choksi feared for his life, was terrified: Wife Priti
Meanwhile, Choki’s wife Priti Choksi on Wednesday said that the woman, rumored to be the buinessman’s girlfriend, is known to her husband and his other acquaintances. News agency ANI quoted Priti Choksi as saying, “The woman was known to my husband and to his other acquaintances. She walked with my husband periodically when she was visiting Antigua. From what I have understood from people who have met her, the woman shown on media channels is not the same woman that they knew as Barbara.”
Earlier, Choksi had gone missing some days ago from Antigua and Barbuda and was later traced to and arrested in Dominica. He alleged through his lawyers that he was abducted on May 23 and that people with ‘links to India’ abducted him in collaboration with Antiguan officials. He was then beaten up, tortured, and taken to Dominica in a vessel where he was arrested, claim Choksi’s lawyers.
Choksi and his nephew Nirav Modi allegedly siphoned off crores of public money from PNB using fraudulent letters of undertaking. At present, Nirav Modi, lodged in a London jail, is contesting his extradition to India after repeated denial of his bail by courts. In 2017, Choksi took citizenship in Antigua and Barbuda and fled India in early January 2018.
