Nirav Modi's assets worth Rs 2,400 crore may be sold

MUMBAI: After a special court declared absconding businessman Nirav Modi a fugitive offender, the focus now shifts to the auction of his two properties, Rhythm House at Kala Ghoda and his Worli residence.
The special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court that declared Nirav a fugitive offender will hear the ED’s application to confiscate the properties worth Rs 2,400 crore and put them up for auction.The hearing is on January 10.
The properties will accede to the government once they are confiscated. The proceeds of the auction will be adjusted against the defrauded amount. 49-year-old Nirav Modi, his uncle Mehul Choksi and several others are accused in the Rs 13,000-crore PNB (Punjab National Bank) fraud case. The Fugitive Economic Offenders Act was applied in the case as Nirav had left the country on January 1 last year and not showed any inclination to return.

Nirav was arrested this March in London and is in judicial custody there. Legal proceedings on his extradition are currently underway.
He had purchased four flats in Samudra Mahal building in Worli, worth Rs 125 crore. Three of these flats, which he had purchased from an industrialist in 2006, have been converted into duplexes. The fourth flat was purchased from a trust associated with a Madhya Pradesh politician. Nirav had bought Rhythm House in 2017 through his company, Firestar Diamond, from its owners, the Curmally family, for Rs 32 crore. His plan was to convert the heritage property into a high-end jewellery showroom.
Nirav is the second businessman after Vijay Mallya to be labelled as a fugitive economic offender under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act.