Economic Offender & Fugitive Mehul Choksi’s Lawyer Vijay Aggarwal Arrested In London

Vijay Aggarwal, the 57-year-old Delhi-based criminal defence lawyer long associated with fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi, now sits in a British prison cell. On 11 August 2026 he was arrested at a luxury Mayfair townhouse. Two days later he was charged with four counts of sexual assault. His personal assistant, Manpreet Kaur, faces two counts of intentionally encouraging or assisting those offences. Both remain remanded in custody. Their next appearance is scheduled for 10 September 2026 at Southwark Crown Court.

These are not vague rumours. They are formal charges under Section 3 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, laid after Metropolitan Police investigation and presented before Westminster Magistrates’ Court. The allegations describe intentional sexual touching of two women without their consent, at a property where Aggarwal and Kaur were staying. The prosecution case further alleges that the women were brought there after a false job advertisement was posted.

That sequence—advertisement, introduction, invitation, alleged assault—forms the core of the case now before the British courts. It demands rigorous public scrutiny precisely because the man facing the charges has spent years positioning himself as a guardian of legal process for one of India’s most wanted economic offenders.

The Timeline of Alleged Offences

According to the charges reported across multiple outlets drawing on court records:

• On 26 May 2026, one alleged sexual assault occurred at the Mayfair address.
• On 9 August 2026, three further counts of sexual assault are alleged to have taken place involving a second woman at the same property.

Kaur is charged with assisting both sets of offences. The prosecution asserts she introduced the women to Aggarwal and invited them to the townhouse after the false job advertisement appeared. Two additional individuals—a 23-year-old man and a 43-year-old woman—were arrested on the same day as Aggarwal and Kaur and later released on bail pending further enquiries. The two women who reported the assaults are receiving specialist support; British law protects their identities.

The location itself is telling. 29 Brick Street is a four-storey, five-bedroom serviced townhouse of approximately 4,000 square feet, complete with maid service and daily breakfast hamper, available at roughly £2,000 a night. It is not a casual rented flat. It is a high-end temporary residence in one of London’s most expensive districts. The choice of such a setting for the alleged encounters, combined with the reported use of a false employment lure, raises serious questions about planning, power imbalance, and the calculated creation of an environment in which consent could be compromised.

The Dual Narrative: Immigration Claims, Cash Rumours, and the Pivot to Sexual Assault Charges

In the days immediately preceding the court appearance, a different story circulated. Several reports claimed Aggarwal had been detained by British immigration authorities over alleged work-permit violations. A landlord’s complaint in May about activity at the Mayfair property was said to have triggered an inspection. During that inspection, some outlets reported, a significant quantity of cash was discovered. Three or four junior lawyers were allegedly present. Aggarwal was said to have been held for approximately three days.

Family members and associates responded forcefully through ANI. They insisted there was “nothing on record or in our knowledge” of any cash recovery or involvement with such funds. They condemned the portrayal of the matter as money-related and demanded that reporting rest only on verified information. Aggarwal himself offered no public comment at that stage.

By 13 August the formal charges that emerged from Westminster Magistrates’ Court centred exclusively on sexual assault and the assistance of those offences. Later court-focused reporting noted the earlier immigration and cash claims but recorded that the Metropolitan Police had not confirmed those separate allegations in the context of the charges that were actually laid. The official process now underway is the sexual assault case. The cash and pure immigration narrative remains unverified by public UK documents and is contested by those close to Aggarwal.

This shift itself requires analytical attention. A landlord complaint can legitimately bring immigration scrutiny. An inspection can reveal other matters. What cannot be ignored is that the charges ultimately preferred by prosecutors concern the sexual exploitation of women allegedly induced by false job advertisements. That is the gravamen of the case the British courts are now required to try.

Professional Standing Versus Alleged Personal Conduct

Aggarwal’s professional record is well documented. He has represented Mehul Choksi in proceedings before the Bombay High Court and has continued to act in connection with Choksi’s extradition battle in Belgium, where Choksi has been held since his arrest in April 2025 on an Indian request. Choksi is accused, with others, of involvement in the Punjab National Bank fraud of approximately ₹13,500 crore; he denies the allegations. Aggarwal has also been linked in public reporting to other high-profile financial and corruption cases.

A lawyer of this profile operates at the intersection of money, power, and legal strategy. The allegations now facing him in London strike at the foundation of the trust that profession claims to uphold. Using, or allowing the use of, a false job advertisement to bring women into a private luxury residence where sexual assaults are then alleged to have occurred is not a minor lapse. It is an alleged abuse of the very instruments of deception that sophisticated financial offenders often employ. The parallel is uncomfortable and, if proved, devastating to any claim of professional integrity.

The presence of a personal assistant charged with assisting the offences further compounds the picture. It suggests, on the prosecution case, a coordinated process rather than isolated impulsive acts. The false job advertisement is not a peripheral detail; it is the alleged mechanism by which the complainants were brought into the environment where the assaults are said to have occurred.

Investigative Gaps and Remaining Questions

Several issues remain unresolved in the public record:

• The precise content and placement of the alleged false job advertisement have not been published.
• The exact amount, ownership, and source of any cash reportedly found during earlier inspection have never been officially confirmed.
• The full scope of immigration or work-permit issues, if any, has not been clarified by UK authorities in the published material.
• One outlet claimed seven women had come forward with molestation complaints; the formal charges centre on two complainants and four counts against Aggarwal. That discrepancy has not been reconciled in subsequent reporting.
• The relationship, if any, between the landlord’s May complaint, the immigration inspection, the cash claims, and the eventual sexual assault investigation has not been publicly mapped by official sources.

These gaps do not diminish the seriousness of the charges that have been laid. They underline the necessity of a full and transparent judicial process. Aggarwal is entitled to the presumption of innocence. The complainants are entitled to a fair hearing of their accounts. The public is entitled to a complete accounting of how a high-profile Indian lawyer came to be remanded in a British prison on multiple sexual assault charges arising from events at a Mayfair townhouse.

The Larger Stakes

Sexual assault charges involving the alleged use of deceptive employment inducements are among the more serious categories of offending that come before the courts. When the accused is a senior criminal defence lawyer whose professional life has been spent navigating complex fraud and extradition cases, the dissonance is acute. The Mayfair setting, the reported false job advertisements, the dual media narratives of immigration irregularities and cash, the swift remand in custody, and the scheduled September hearing together form a case study in the collision between public image and private allegation.

The British criminal justice system will now test the evidence. Until then, the charges stand as formal accusations of the highest gravity. They cannot be dismissed as minor or peripheral. They cannot be subordinated to the professional prestige Aggarwal has accumulated through his association with Mehul Choksi. They require, and will receive, rigorous examination. Anything less would be an insult both to the complainants and to the principle that no professional status places a person beyond the reach of the criminal law.