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By:

C.S. Krishnamurthy

21 June 2025 at 7:45:51 pm

When Politics Becomes Its Own Evidence

Tamil Nadu’s Assembly has recently offered something more revealing than a television shouting match. It has shown us what happens when allegations, evidence, history and political memory all enter the same room and nobody quite agrees on who should speak first. The latest TVK-DMK confrontation over corruption allegations is therefore about much more than corruption. Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay used the Assembly to accuse the previous DMK regime of corruption, referring to material from...

When Politics Becomes Its Own Evidence

Tamil Nadu’s Assembly has recently offered something more revealing than a television shouting match. It has shown us what happens when allegations, evidence, history and political memory all enter the same room and nobody quite agrees on who should speak first. The latest TVK-DMK confrontation over corruption allegations is therefore about much more than corruption. Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay used the Assembly to accuse the previous DMK regime of corruption, referring to material from the Enforcement Directorate and the Sarkaria Commission. He alleged that contractors were made to part with percentages of contract values as “party funds”. DMK members strongly objected, sought an opportunity to respond and later stormed the Well, resulting in their removal from the House. There is a deeper question beneath the noise. What exactly should an allegation in a legislature accomplish? If Vijay is merely repeating an accusation for political effect, then it is little more than electoral gains. But if he is placing documentary material before the public and the appropriate investigative agencies, then the matter deserves something more serious than a political counterattack. Equally, if the DMK says the allegations are false, or politically motivated, it has every democratic right to challenge them. But the strongest rebuttal is not simply, “You have no right to say this.” It is, “Here is why the evidence does not establish what you claim.” Political Shortcuts A politician can make an allegation. An investigator can investigate it. A court can adjudicate it. A citizen can question it. But none of these roles should be confused. The current Assembly drama appears to be suffering from this confusion. Vijay may have scored a political point by bringing old corruption allegations back into the spotlight, but it’s not a judicial verdict. Similarly, DMK’s denial or outrage does not, by itself, erase the possibility that wrongdoing may have occurred. Politics, alas, loves shortcuts. If a rival is accused, supporters immediately become prosecutors. If their own leader is accused, those same supporters suddenly become constitutional lawyers. The same document becomes “damning evidence” when it hurts the opponent, and “political garbage” when it does not. Our political spectacles have acquired an interesting grammar: my allegation is evidence, your evidence is allegation. Vijay’s government is now in the unusual position of being able to investigate allegations concerning a previous ruling establishment. That creates both an opportunity and a responsibility. If there is credible material, investigate it properly. If wrongdoing is established, prosecute it according to law. And if the allegations do not survive scrutiny, say so equally clearly. There is also a warning for the DMK. The instinctive political response to an accusation is often to attack the accuser. Sometimes that may be justified. But the public ultimately wants answers, not merely counter-accusations. Paper Trail If the allegation concerns contracts, party funds, tender procedures or unexplained financial transactions, the most convincing response would be documentary. Politics may thrive on rhetoric, but accountability thrives on paperwork. The Speaker’s handling of the recent confrontation also matters. The Assembly must remain a place where governments are questioned and opposition parties are heard. At the same time, legislators cannot convert every disagreement into a licence to disrupt proceedings. The reported eviction of DMK members shows how quickly substantive questions can disappear beneath procedural confrontation. That is perhaps the biggest casualty in the current episode. The public begins with a question about corruption and ends up watching a quarrel about who was allowed to speak. The original question gets lost in the noise. Tamil Nadu deserves better. The ultimate test, therefore, is not whether TVK can shout louder than DMK or vice versa but whether truth can survive politics. Otherwise, we may end up with a strange democratic situation where everyone produces evidence of something, except evidence of the thing actually being debated. Vijay has opened a legitimate political question, but he must now allow evidence to do the heavy lifting. DMK has every right to challenge the allegations, but it too must answer them with facts. And the Assembly must rise above the theatre of accusation and counter-accusation. Because corruption should not be defeated by the loudest speech, but by the strongest evidence. And if Tamil Nadu’s new political chapter is genuinely going to be different, perhaps that is the first test both sides should be willing to take. (The writer is a retired banker and author. He can be reached at krs1957@hotmail.com. Views personal.)

India waits to lasso diamantaire Mehul Choksi

Quaid Najmi
Apr 14, 2025
5 min read

Mumbai: India rubbed its hands gleefully as the Belgium Police honoured its request to arrest the absconder diamantaire Mehul Chinubhai Choksi – more than seven years after he, along with his nephew Nirav Deepak Modi - allegedly duped the Punjab National Bank of nearly Rs. 13,800-crores.

 

The scam involving the ‘Mehul Mama-Nirav Bhanja’ erupted in Jan 2018, after the PNB lodged a complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

 

By then the kin, along with many of their family members, winked and slipped out of the country, leaving a rattled India rubbing its palms in disappointment.

 

A political-cum-financial storm raged, embarrassing the Bharatiya Janata Party government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi a year before the Lok Sabha elections.

 

Multiple agencies launched a multi-pronged probe into what became the biggest banking scam in the past quarter century – and almost four times bigger than the stock market-cum-banking fraud the late Big Bull Harshad Mehta had inflicted on the Indian economy 33 years ago (in April 1992) – when it was just opening up.

 

In Belgium

According to official reports, Choksi was living with his Belgium citizen-wife Preeti in Antwerp, a global diamond hub, presumably for the past 18 months on a ‘residency permit’ acquired through questionable means, for medical reasons.

 

Earlier, he shot to the headers (June 2021) while being taken in a wheelchair to a court by the Dominican Republic's Police on charges of sneaking into the small country in the Caribbean Sea, North America.

 

Interestingly, as the Antigua & Barbuda government initiated the process to cancel his citizenship acquired through an investor visa, Choksi had suddenly gone ‘missing’ till he surfaced in the Dominican Republic.

 

The April 2025 action by Belgium followed a request by India’s CBI and the financial frauds specialist Enforcement Directorate (ED) to nab Choksi as the InterPol had revoked his Red Corner Notice in 2023.

 

Mama and Bhanja

‘Mama’ Choksi is the founder-owner of Gitanjali Group while ‘bhanja’ Nirav’s Firestar plus other companies – and the duo, with some PNB officials hand-in-glove – conspired to make a ‘mamu’ of not only PNB, but other banks, as it subsequently tumbled out.

 

After making a quiet exit, Choksi was detected living in the verdant Antigua & Barbuda Isles (West Indies), then attempted entry to the Dominican Republic, was sent back to Antigua & Barbuda and then went to Belgium where he was nabbed on Sunday.

 

Similarly, Modi was found sauntering on the streets of London and nabbed in March 2019. He remains in jail there since India's extradition is still pending.

 

However, India is keeping its fingers crossed that it may finally lay hands on Choksi, bring him to India and face trial in the PNB scam, though it may take time.

 

Born in Mumbai (1959) and educated in Gujarat, Choksi, 66, and wife Preeti have three children.

 

The Rs. 13,800-crore PNB scam

In the modus operandi revealed after India’s second-largest PSU bank PNB admitted it was scammed, Choksi and Modi used fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoU) to get overseas credits or loans from Indian banks.

 

The PNB first informed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) of the fraud and then lodged a criminal complaint with the CBI in Jan. 2018, plus another CBI complaint in Feb, that led to a FIR against Modi and Choksi and their companies.

 

The ED entered the scene to probe the allegations of money-laundering through the LoUs – which they allegedly misused to avail short-term business finances from foreign branches of Indian banks.

 

The probe said that the duo were availing the LoUs from the PNB’s Brady House Branch from March 2011, and over the next six-seven years, managed to get a whopping 1,200-plus LoUs like a breeze with the help of some friendly bankers within.

 

Post-scam, the gold-diamond companies Gitanjali Group and Firestone Group with multiple operations in India and abroad have largely wound up, while some personal assets of the mama-bhanja have been auctioned to recover a part of the dues.

 

ED's plea to declare Choksi fugitive stuck for seven years

Even as absconding diamantaire Mehul Choksi, a key accused in the Punjab National Bank loan fraud case, has been arrested in Belgium, the ED's plea to declare him a fugitive economic offender has been pending before a court in Mumbai for nearly seven years.


Choksi, 65, and his nephew diamantaire Nirav Modi are the prime accused in the Rs 13,000 crore PNB bank loan fraud case. Choksi was arrested in Belgium following an extradition request by Indian probe agencies, official sources said on Monday.


The Enforcement Directorate had filed the application in July 2018, seeking to declare Choksi an FEO and confiscate his assets under provisions of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act.


However, the matter has witnessed repeated delays owing to a barrage of applications filed by the accused in the PMLA court and the Bombay High Court alleging procedural lapses in the Enforcement Directorate's plea.


"The court is kept busy with frivolous applications, and hearing on our application to declare him (Choksi) an FEO has been adjourned for the past seven years,” an ED officer had said after the hearing was once again deferred this February.


"The court should have continued the hearing and taken a decision on the future course of action once the application was moved," the officer had said.

He had urged the court to take note of the repeated filing of similar applications and to not entertain them.


Choksi's lawyer had informed the court that the accused was undergoing treatment for suspected cancer in Belgium and intended to file an application in connection with his health.


Under the FEO Act, an individual can be declared a Fugitive Economic Offender if a warrant has been issued against him for an offence involving Rs 100 crore or more and he has left India while refusing to return. Once declared an FEO, the person's property can be confiscated by the investigating agency.


Choksi had challenged the ED's application in the Bombay High Court, alleging that the agency "had not followed proper procedure before filing the application and, hence, it stands vitiated".


However, in September 2023, the High Court dismissed his plea, ruling that the ED had adhered to the prescribed format under the FEO Act. It also vacated a stay on the special court's proceedings.


Despite this, the hearing on declaring Choksi FEO could not commence, with Choksi continuing to file applications before the special court through his lawyers.


While most of these pleas have been dismissed, a few remain pending. His latest attempt to stall proceedings through a plea to recall the notice issued on the ED's FEO application was rejected in December 2023.


According to ED officials, Choksi left India under suspicious circumstances in early January 2018.


Shifting stance

Choksi's counsel has argued that the ED kept shifting its stance on the material grounds for declaring him an FEO and that the suspension of his Indian passport made it impossible for him to return for investigation.

The court, however, rejected this argument, stating that the notice was issued based on accurate information and not based on "wrong facts or mistaken assumptions".


ED claimed the accused left the country under suspicious circumstances in the first week of January 2018.


Nirav Modi has already been declared as an FEO by the special court. He has been lodged in jail in London since 2019.

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