RBI's unrevised list has Mehul Choksi as top defaulter

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 28

Absconding diamantaires Mehul Choksi and Jatin Mehta are among the top three defaulters whose loans have been technically written off by Indian banks, according to replies provided to RTI activist Saket Gokhale by RBI’s Central Public Information Officer Abhay Kumar.

This list is not new and was published earlier. It’s shocking that the RBI claims they haven’t updated it since September 30, 2019,’’ Gokhale posted on Twitter along with screenshots of the information provided by the RBI from its Central Repository of Information on Large Credits (CRILC) which maintains credit information of all borrowers who have taken more than Rs 5 crore.

However, all defaulters are facing government action in the form of extradition proceedings, attachment of properties and tracing of the money trail.

The RBI said the list of top 50 defaulters as on September 30, 2019 and whose outstanding had been written off was topped by fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi, whom Prime Minister Narendra Modi had singled out in a small get-together of prominent businessmen in 2015 as ‘Mehul bhai’. After Choksi fled to and got the citizenship of Antigua, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, though he had difficulty in remembering his name, said he was a partner of another diamantaire-fugitive Nirav Modi. There are four more jewellers in the list of top 50 defaulters.

Gokhale posted on social media that the reason he had filed the RTI because “Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur had refused to reply to this starred question asked in Parliament by Congress MP Rahul Gandhi in the last Budget Session on February 16.’’

Choksi’s company, Gitanjali Gems Limited, owed Rs 5,492 crore while other group companies owed another 2,556 crore. The second in the list is REI Agro Ltd, with an amount of Rs 4,314 crore. Its directors Sandip Jhujhunwala and Sanjay Jhunjhunwala have been facing the brunt of investigations by the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate. They are followed by diamantaire Jatin Mehta whose companies owe Rs 4,076 crore and is also being investigated by the CBI.

Ramdev and Balkrishna’s group company Ruchi Soya Industries owes the banks Rs 2,212 crore while absconder liquor baron Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines owes banks Rs 1,943 crore.

“A majority of them have defaulted prominent nationalist banks over the past several years and many of them are either absconding or facing action by various probe agencies and some are under litigation,’’ said Gokhale.