Diamantaire Mehul Choksi, a key accused in the multi-crore PNB scam, has told a special court in Mumbai that he hasn't been able to return to India "due to reasons beyond his control" and hence cannot be declared a "fugitive economic offender". The accused has claimed that he didn't leave India to avoid criminal prosecution nor is he refusing to return to the country. He said his passport has been suspended by Indian authorities.
The RBI expects the assessment to show if the systemic failure was only in PNB or in the overall banking universe
There can't be a parallel inquiry and parallel monitoring by the courts, Attorney General K K Venugopal told the court.
"Our preliminary estimates show we may have to provide for around Rs 60 billion in the balance sheet for the quarter ending on March. The due date for LoUs amounting to Rs 60 billion is falling in the present quarter. This will be a contingent liability for the bank," said a senior executive, on condition of anonymity.
The diamantaire's counsel said there is a vigilance manual circular that the consortium can lodge only one FIR. Each consortium member cannot lodge separate FIRs, he said.
According to ED sources Sunil Mehta said the fraud took place due to "systemic failure" and "procedural lapses", owing to lack of interface or proper links between the core banking software and the SWIFT interbank messaging system.
A large number of public sector bank employees, as a matter of routine, do not "take" promotions so that they are not transferred out of their hometowns. The eastern region is famous for this, but it is a common practice everywhere, says Shyamal Majumdar.
A special court here on Friday allowed 'restoration' of properties worth Rs 500 crore of fugitive jeweler Nirav Modi 's firms to Punjab National Bank (PNB). This is the third such order in a span of about two weeks, with the total value of properties owned by Nirav Modi's companies being restored in this manner now standing at approximately Rs 1,000 crore.
The ED has charged the accused under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in the over Rs 13,000 crore PNB scam case.
Companies owned by fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi have allegedly siphoned off over Rs 6,344.96 crore from the Punjab National Bank (PNB) using fraudulent letters of undertaking and foreign letters of credit, a CBI investigation into the scam has detected. The findings were submitted by the CBI in a supplementary chargesheet filed before a special court in Mumbai last week, where the agency said the PNB was conned by its employees who were allegedly hand in gloves with Choksi and his company executives and who facilitated the scam as part of a criminal conspiracy. The PNB officials at the bank's Brady House branch in Mumbai issued 165 letters of undertaking (LoUs) and 58 foreign letters of credit (FLCs) during March-April 2017, against which 311 bills were discounted.
The Reserve Bank has permitted PNB to make provisions against the fraud amount.
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Bank provides for Rs 7,178 crore, or 50 pf of the total amount of the Rs 14,356 crore scam, in the fourth quarter of 2017-18. The remaining amount will be covered in the three quarters of the current fiscal year.
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Markets regulator Sebi has ordered the attachment of bank accounts and shares and mutual fund holdings of fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi to recover dues totalling Rs 5.35 crore. The latest decision has been taken after Choksi failed to pay the fine imposed on him in October 2022 by Sebi in a case pertaining to indulging in fraudulent trading in the shares of Gitanjali Gems Ltd. Choksi, who was the chairman and managing director as well as part of the promoter group of Gitanjali Gems, is the maternal uncle of Nirav Modi, both of whom are facing charges of defrauding state-owned Punjab National Bank (PNB) of more than Rs 14,000 crore.
Sebi on Thursday sent a notice to fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi asking him to pay Rs 5.35 crore in a case pertaining to fraudulent trading in the shares of Gitanjali Gems Ltd and warned of arrest and attachment of assets as well as bank accounts if he fails to make the payment within 15 days. The demand notice came after Choksi failed to pay a fine imposed on him by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). Choksi, who was the chairman and managing director as well as part of promoter group of Gitanjali Gems, is the maternal uncle of Nirav Modi.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said that fugitive businessmen Vijaya Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi are "coming back" to India" to face the law.
Gitanjali Gems and Firestar Diamonds together account for 5.8 per cent of the diamond and jewellery trade in India.
PNB is fully committed to its clean banking policy. That is why we are the first one to detect and report this to the various law enforcement agencies," PNB's CMD Sunil Mehta said on Thursday.
The total number of arrests by the CBI has risen to six -- four PNB officials, a retired employee of the bank, and an authorsied signatory of Nirav Modi's company -- after Monday's development.
Prompt measures and legal actions taken by the Indian government and PNB helped in securing the extradition of diamantaire Nirav Modi by the UK on Friday, a senior official said. UK Home Secretary Priti Patel on Friday signed off on the order to extradite Nirav Modi, wanted in India on fraud and money laundering charges related to the estimated USD 2-billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam case. According to the government official, a scam of this magnitude had potential to create instability in the financial sector but the deft handling saved the entire public sector banking space from the crisis and litigation.
The jeweller, who had left the country before Punjab National Bank approached the CBI with complaint against him and Nirav Modi, said the media continued to conduct a trial by itself blowing each and every issue out of proportion.
Gokulnath Shetty, then deputy manager (now retired), Manoj Kharat, a single window operator of PNB, and Hemant Bhat were taken into custody by the agency
The Delhi high court on Friday dismissed a plea by Mehul Choksi, an accused in the nearly USD 2 billion PNB scam, to conduct pre-screening of Netflix documentary Bad Boy Billionaires.
He escaped the country in the first week and took the oath of allegiance in Antigua on January 15
The problem here is that internal auditors are good at accounts, but they are not trained to track foreign exchange transactions
The legal procedure of extradition of an accused takes its own time and Indian investigators, both from the CBI and ED, are tracking the case.
The challenge before the management is ensuring simultaneous disclosure of key information to stock exchanges and investigating agencies.
Choksi filed the affidavit in connection with two petitions submitted by him in the HC seeking dismissal of an application filed by the ED in a special court for declaring him a fugitive economic offender.
ICAI intends to investigate the chartered accountants of PNB but the bank allegedly refuses to give the information sought.
The bank also issued 234 LoUs worth Rs 1,880 crore to another group of companies promoted by Mehul Choksi in 2015 and 2016
Modi is the second businessman after liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya to be declared a fugitive economic offender under provisions of the Fugitive Economic Offenders (FEO) Act which came into existence in August last year.
Sebi has barred fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi and one Rakesh Girdharlal Gajera from the capital markets for one year and levied a fine totalling Rs 2.5 crore on them for violating insider trading rules in the matter of Gitanjali Gems. In addition, they have been restrained from buying, selling or otherwise dealing in securities of Gitanjali Gems Ltd (GGL) for a period of two years. Also, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has directed Gajera to disgorge a sum of Rs 15.82 crore.
District Judge Marie Mallon said there were substantial grounds to believe that Nirav Modi would fail to surrender if granted bail.
The government had moved NCLT to freeze the assets of 19 people after CBI filed a charge sheet in Nirav Modi's case and Gitanjali Group cases.
PNB took the delivery of these high-end luxury cars worth approximately Rs 1.34 crore last month, unmindful of the coronavirus outbreak, subsequent nation-wide lockdown and its crippling effect on the financial sector as well as the economy. The annual depreciation on this purchase will be around about Rs 20 lakh.
"I can assure you that he will be ultimately deported after exhausting all his appeals. He will be extradited back to India to face whatever charges against him. It is just a matter of time," Gaston Browne told ANI.
The ED on Monday also examined the state-owned bank's executive director K V Brahmaji Rao to understand how the alleged fraud was detected and other banking procedures.
However, the road to profitability has already hit some hurdles for the Delhi-based bank as the Union government has rejected its demand for an additional capital infusion of around Rs 8,000 crore in 2018-19
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