Industrialist Anil Ambani has approached the Supreme Court seeking a court-facilitated debt resolution similar to the one provided to Sterling group's Nitin and Chetan Sandesara, and five other members of their families.
The Enforcement Directorate has alleged that this is a bigger bank scam in volume than that of the Punjab National Bank fraud by fugitive diamantaires Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, as it involves fraud to the tune of about Rs 16,000 crore.
The ED had summoned Patel, 70, twice for questioning in the case but the Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Gujarat later cited prevailing COVID-19 guidelines that advises senior citizens to stay indoors in order to remain safe from the pandemic.
The Ministry of Home Affairs amended its guidelines on October 12 to include the chairman, managing director or chief executive officer of each public sector bank on the list of authorities who can issue requests for opening look-out circulars against whom an FIR is yet to be filed.
Between April and August, it issued request seeking LoC against 147 individuals to prevent them from leaving the country, the bank said in response to a Right to Information query filed by Pune-based activist Vihar Durve.
The opposition party questioned why the government took five years after the liquidation proceedings of ABG Shipyard to lodge an FIR in connection with the alleged duping of 28 banks.
