Mumbai: In a relief to former independent directors of companies owned by jewellers Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Monday vacated an earlier restraining order on them. This will pave the way for these individuals to operate their bank accounts and personal assets.
The former directors on the board of companies owned by Choksi and Modi had approached the tribunal seeking to have their names removed from an earlier order of the tribunal.
A division bench of B.S.V. Prakash Kumar and Ravi Kumar Duraisamy vacated its earlier order on the restriction on the personal assets including bank accounts of the former directors.
Independent directors Sanjay Rishi, president of American Express for South Asia and network partners; Gautham Mukkavilli, a former PepsiCo executive; and former Wipro chief financial officer Suresh Senapaty had appealed against the order of the court.
On 23 February a division bench of NCLT allowed the government to attach 64 properties belonging to individuals as well as companies that are part of groups headed by Modi and Choksi who find mention in the complaint lodged by state-run Punjab National Bank (PNB).
Meanwhile, former company secretaries of the companies owned by Modi and Choksi have also approached the tribunal to vacate the attachment order against them which the tribunal will hear on 26 March.
“The independent directors have limited role and the investigation agencies have so far no evidence on the basis of which they have sought the tribunal order to freeze the accounts of the independent directors,” argued senior counsel Iqbal Chagla, who was representing Mukkavilli in the case.
“If you make independent directors liable for things which were never even part of board meetings or under the purview of such directors then it will be very difficult for any company to get good independent directors,” Chagla added.
Counsel for Rishi and Senapathy argued that have 36 and 37 years of experience respectively. He added that investigating agencies have no evidence against any of them for any wrongdoing.
