Court orders Netflix & Centre to respond to Mehul Choksi's plea on 'Bad Boy Billionaires'

The Delhi High Court on Monday sought responses from the Centre and online video streaming platform, Netflix, on Punjab National Bank scam accused Mehul Choksi's appeal against the dismissal of his plea to pre-screen the Bad Boy Billionaires docuseries. A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan issued notice to the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) and Netflix and sought their stand by September 23 on Choksi's appeal.

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Advocate Vijay Aggarwal, appearing for the PNB scam accused, said he was only seeking that the matter be remanded back to the single judge who had dismissed as "not maintainable" the plea to pre-screen the docuseries. The single judge had on August 28 denied any relief to Choksi, saying a writ petition for enforcement of a private right was not maintainable. The high court had said his remedy lies in a civil suit and granted him the liberty to raise the issue in a civil suit.

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Choksi, the promoter of Gitanjali Gems, and his nephew, Nirav Modi, are accused in the ₹ 13,500-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case. Choksi left the country last year and was granted citizenship of Antigua and Barbuda.

The documentary, which was scheduled for release in India on September 2, was promoted by Netflix as: "This investigative docuseries explores the greed, fraud and corruption that built up - and ultimately brought down - India's most infamous tycoons".

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About the show

Bad Boy Billionaires focuses on the fraud committed by many high-profile business tycoons in the country. The poster released by Netflix shows Modi; Subrata Roy, the managing worker and chairman of Sahara India Pariwar; Vijay Mallya, the chairman of United Breweries (UB) Group; and Ramalinga Raju, the former chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Satyam Computer Services.

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(With PTI inputs)