Daily Briefing: What next for Mehul Choksi; IPL bats under scanner

On that note, let’s get today’s edition.

Big Story

On Saturday, Belgian police arrested fugitive Indian diamantaire Mehul Choksi in Antwerp, acting on India’s extradition request. Choksi was wanted for his involvement in the Rs 13,000-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) loan fraud case. He fled India in January 2018, shortly after obtaining Antiguan and Barbudan citizenship in November 2017.

Stat: The Indian government is moving quickly. It has shortlisted Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) officers to visit Belgium for extradition paperwork and to coordinate with local authorities. Choksi’s lawyer, Vijay Aggarwal, told us that he plans to contest the extradition on medical grounds, claiming, “He is undergoing cancer treatment…and is not a flight risk.”

Homecoming soon? In 2021, Choksi was arrested in Dominica for illegal entry, claiming he was abducted from Antigua and Barbuda and “honey-trapped” by a Hungarian woman. India pursued extradition, but efforts stalled after he was granted bail on medical grounds.

However, this situation may be different due to India’s extradition treaty with Belgium, which dates back to 1901. But don’t expect him to arrive in India anytime soon, considering how extraditions operate, particularly in Europe. In this instance, Choksi’s extradition would need to satisfy the “dual criminality” clause, which permits a person’s extradition only if “her offence is punishable in both jurisdictions involved.” We explain.

🎧 For more on Choksi’s arrest, tune in to today’s episode of the ‘3 Things’ podcast.

Only in Express

On April 3, the Supreme Court delivered a blow to West Bengal’s education system, ruling that the 2016 School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment process was “vitiated and tainted by fraud.” The fallout? Over 17,000 teachers were abruptly ousted from their jobs. We travelled across the state to see how schools are holding up. The situation is grim. Classrooms are in disarray. Students face the loss of trusted teachers. In some schools, senior students have been drafted to invigilate exams; in others, subjects are being taught by whoever’s available. Read our ground report.

From the Front Page

Displaced: As Bengal reels from the April 11 violence that left three dead, another crisis is quietly unfolding. In Murshidabad, where tensions boiled over the controversial Waqf Amendment Act, a sense of unease hangs thick in the air. We met those who have lost everything—homes, safety, and even a sense of belonging. Caught in the crosshairs, they now live as refugees in their own land.

Green lit: The Cheetah Project, which kicked off in 2022 at the Kuno National Park, has been marred by several setbacks, including the deaths of eight cheetahs translocated from Namibia and South Africa. Amid concerns over a deficit of prey at Kuno, the project’s Steering Committee has decided to shift some cheetahs to Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary.

Express Impact: In October last year, The Indian Express exposed the peculiar use of a confiscated property by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). In fact, the Union Bank of India even challenged the confiscation of this property, a South Delhi farmhouse. What now? The agency has moved out of the farmhouse, but the banks still await the court’s orders.

Must Read

Coalition math: Once, a coalition government of national parties and regional players signalled the deepening of democracy. In her column, our national opinion editor, Vandita Mishra, writes how this power-sharing pact has faded and frayed under the third term of the Narendra Modi government.

Reservation matrix: A caste survey conducted in Karnataka has found that all communities among the main backward castes have higher numbers than previously estimated for reservation. While the findings are yet to be made public, my colleague Johnson T A brings you the key highlights of the report, its recommendations, including increasing the OBC quota in the state to 51%, and how all this will likely play out.

And Finally…

In 2022, Norwegian chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, a five-time world champion, relinquished his title, citing a lack of motivation to play and going so far as to call the games a “circus”. That changed on Sunday, when he defeated his one-time arch-nemesis, Hikaru Nakamura, at the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour in Paris. Here’s how Carlsen rediscovered his love for chess.

That’s all for today, folks! Until tomorrow,
Sonal Gupta and Venkat Ananth

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