Absconding businessman Mehul Choksi’s lawyer on Saturday told a Mumbai court that he was “medically unfit” to travel to India, reports said. The lawyer was responding to the Enforcement Directorate’s plea to declare Choksi a fugitive economic offender.

Choksi and his nephew Nirav Modi are accused of defrauding the Punjab National Bank of over Rs 13,500 crore and are being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate. Choksi was granted citizenship in Antigua and Barbuda in November 2017, and is believed to have been there since.

On October 30, his lawyers had submitted a statement from Choksi that claimed that the businessman had blocked arteries, diabetes and a clot in his brain since 2012, The Indian Express reported. “It has resulted in multiple medical complications, making it extremely impossible for him to travel on long flights of 41 hours,” the application submitted by Choksi’s advocates Sanjay Abbot and Rahul Agarwal stated.

On Saturday, Choksi’s lawyer said his client’s statement in the case could be recorded via video conferencing or Enforcement Directorate officials could go to Antigua to record his statement or wait for three months. “If his [Choksi’s] condition improves, he will come back to record his statement [after three months],” the lawyer told the court.

The Enforcement Directorate objected to the claims of the defence, saying Choksi had never shown willingness to cooperate with the investigation, the Hindustan Times reported. The court will continue to hear the case on Monday.

A Central Bureau of Investigation court had issued non-bailable warrants against Choksi and Modi in March. Choksi fled India in January, a few weeks before the Rs 13,600-crore scam at Punjab National Bank came to light. In August, he said he had “lawfully applied” to become a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda to expand his business interests in the Caribbean.

On September 26, a special court in Mumbai gave time till October 30 to Choksi to file his reply to an Enforcement Directorate plea seeking to declare him a fugitive under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act. The agency had moved the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court seeking to declare Choksi and Modi “fugitive economic offenders” and an approval to confiscate their assets, both movable and immovable, worth Rs 3,500 crore.