GJEPC issues show cause notice to Surat’s diamond merchant

A diamond merchant from India’s diamond hub Surat, was issued a show cause notice by the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC). He has been accused of selling laboratory grown diamonds as natural diamonds, reports say.

The detection of the nature of the stones was realized by the Council when the stones were submitted to the Indian Diamond Institute for testing, reports say.

The entire episode took momentum when diamond traders - Krunal Borad and Gaurang Kanani, of Choksi Bazaar in Varachha area of Surat bought the stones as natural diamonds, from a broker and found them to be of synthetic nature. The stones were of diamonds of 1.28 carats worth Rs 21,000.

Upon questioning the broker, the trader duo learned the stones were bought from diamond merchant Chandu Sheta. He owns a factory in the Varachha area and is a member of the Surat Diamond Association (SDA) and a previous committee member of the association, as per reports. The two diamond traders approached the SDA which sent the stones to Indian Diamond Institute for testing. The SDA further sent the diamonds and the corresponding certificate to the monitoring committee of natural diamonds of GJEPC. Also, in the GJEPC meeting in Mumbai, members decided to issue the notice to Sheta with 190 days granted to him for a reply, reports say.