HC asks cops to probe into allegations against Mehul Choksi

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court today directed the police to investigate cheating allegations levelled against Gitanjali Gems promoter Mehul Choksi in an FIR lodged in 2016 by the owner of one of its retail franchise.

A bench of Justice Mukta Gupta asked the police to file a report on the matter while noting that the probe was at a standstill as the complainant and the accused were trying to negotiate a settlement. The bench, however, said that the interim protection from any coercive action granted to Choksi in April last year will continue.

The diamond merchant had approached the high court for quashing of the FIR lodged against him for allegedly cheating an engineer’s firm in 2016. The FIR was lodged on the orders of a magisterial court here on a complaint by B.Tech graduate Vaibhav Khuraniya alleging that his company RM Green Solutions had purchased a retail franchise of Gitanjali Jewellers from Choksi on an assurance of high returns.

The FIR, lodged in Amar Colony police station in south Delhi, alleged that Khuraniya and his colleague Deepak Bansal had set up RM Green Solutions and got into an agreement with Gitanjali Gems and Choksi who had assured them of stocks worth Rs three crore in the form of diamond jewellery and other gifts on a security deposit of Rs 1.5 crore.

The FIR had also alleged that on the day of opening of the retail franchise store in Rajouri Garden in West Delhi in October 2013, the fraud came to light as they received third-grade diamonds and other items, the worth of which was around Rs 50-70 lakh. The district court had on June 2, 2016 ordered registration of an FIR against Choksi, which was lodged on July 12, 2016.