NEW DELHI: A day after a police verification report giving clean chit to fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi sparked a controversy, the Mumbai police brass ordered an enquiry to find out if there were any lapses in the process even as senior Congress leader P Chidambaram wondered how the diamond merchant could have fled the country despite being under investigation since 2016.

The Mumbai police on Saturday defended its verification procedures for passport, saying that the criminal antecedents and information system (CAIS), used to check the criminal record of an applicant in a particular police station area, didn’t throw up any “criminal” on Choksi as he had never been arrested.

“On February 23, 2017, Mehul Choksi had applied for getting police clearance certificate (PCC) to RPO (regional passport office), Mumbai. The next day, Personal Particular Form was downloaded by Malabar Hill police station for verification. On March 10, 2017, the Malabar Hill police station submitted a clear report i.e. no criminal antecedents against Mehul Choksi...” the Mumbai police said in a statement on Saturday. The report was forwarded to RPO on March 14, 2017, by passport branch SB-II, CID, Mumbai police.

The police said the CAIS reflects the applicant’s name only if he has been arrested in any offence. At the time of issuance of Choksi’s passport in 2015 too, “no police verification status was granted by RPO Mumbai”, so no police verification ( PVR ) was generated by the city police, the statement added.

