CHOKSI'S ILLEGAL ANTIGUAN CITIZENSHIP EXPOSED

According to officials, Choksi was aware of the criminal charges against him before he applied for citizenship by investment.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

Wanted fugitive Mehul Choksi, who is residing in Antigua and Barbuda, had taken the citizenship of the country of Antigua and Barbuda on 26 April 2017. This date becomes crucial as a criminal case against him was registered in India in July 2016 on the order of a Delhi court based on a complaint filed by a group of individuals who had purchased a retail franchise of Gitanjali Jewellers from Choksi to open a shop in Rajouri Garden in Delhi in 2013, but received third grade diamonds after depositing Rs 1.5 crore.

Choksi, an accused in the Rs 15,000 crore Punjab National Bank scam had fled India in January 2018 and eventually landed in Antigua and Barbuda, of which he had already taken citizenship by the investment route under the Antigua and Barbuda Citizenship Act, more than one and a half years before he actually left India.

Significantly, under Section 8 of the Antigua and Barbuda Citizenship Act, “false representation or fraud or wilful concealment of material facts” is a ground for the cancellation of citizenship. Further, failure to reveal the existence of such a charge automatically results in the rejection of the application for citizenship.

In Choksi’s case, both these conditions were violated as he was an accused in a court-mandated police investigation in India before he applied for his Antiguan citizenship and he had not revealed the same in his application to Antigua and Barbuda.