Week after petition by Nirav Modi’s son, Supreme Court stalls auction of paintings seized by ED

In a relief to fugitive diamond jeweller Nirav Modi, the Supreme Court directed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) & art auction house Saffronart to not auction the rare paintings seized by the agency till Feb 29, as Modi’s son Rohin has claimed that these paintings belong to Rohin Trust & not Nirav Modi.

Rohin Modi, the beneficiary of Rohin Trust, moved a writ petition in the Top Court on Feb 19 against the auction by Saffronart that was scheduled on Thursday. While the Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice of India, on Wednesday, directed Rohin Modi to approach the Bombay HC for relief, it asked the Centre to not hold the auction till Feb 29.

Following the Supreme Court direction, Saffronart said it has postponed the live auction of at least 112 assets (including the paintings) till Mar 5. The auction house had also scheduled an online auction of Modi’s assets on March 3. However, with Rohin Modi’s petition, the fate of these auctions will now be decided by the HC.

Saffronart is planning to sell at least 15 artworks by modern & contemporary Indian artists such as Amrita Sher-Gil, MF Hussain, VS Gaitonde & Manjit Bawa among others, through the two auctions.

According to the auction catalogue, a 1935 piece by Sher-Gil has been valued at Rs 12 crore, while Husain’s ‘Mahabharata’ series, which was on the cover of the catalogue for the Herwitz sale in 2000, has been valued at Rs 18 crore. Additionally, several luxury diamond watches, Hermes handbags & luxury cars such as Rolls Royce Ghost & Porsche Panamera S have been put on the block.

Most of these paintings were seized by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) from Nirav Modi’s houses in Mumbai after the agency registered a money laundering case against him & his uncle Mehul Choksi for defrauding Punjab National Bank by routing fraudulent transactions of about Rs 13,600 crore. Last year, Saffronart auctioned 68 artworks owned by Nirav Modi on behalf of the Income Tax Department, which raised about Rs 54 crore through the sale of the paintings.

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