PNB scam: 11 in judicial custody till March 28

A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Saturday remanded the 11 accused arrested in connection with the multi-billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case, till March 28 in judicial custody. The CBI has alleged the companies controlled by diamond baron Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi had obtained fraudulent letters of undertaking and letters of credit, worth over ~130 billion from PNB in connivance with some officials of the bank.

A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court here on Saturday remanded in judicial custody till March 28 the 11 accused arrested in connection with the multi-billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case.

The CBI has alleged that the companies controlled by diamond baron Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi had obtained fraudulent letters of undertaking (LoUs) and letters of credit (LCs), worth over ~130 billion from PNB in connivance with some officials of the bank.

Nirav Modi’s companies allegedly defrauded PNB of over ~65 billion, while the figure for Choksi’s firms stand at ~70.80 billion.

Key accused Gokulnath Shetty (former deputy general manager of PNB), Manoj Kharat (single-window operator of PNB) Hemant Bhat (authorised signatory of Nirav Modi’s company), Bechhu Tiwari (then chief manager in the Forex department of PNB), were produced in the court of Special CBI judge S R Tamboli on Saturday.

Forex department’s scale-II Manager Yashwant Joshi, Praful Sawant, scaleI officer handling exports section, former assistant general managers (operations) of Firestar International Manish Bosamiya, then financial manager of Firestar Miten Pandia, Firestar auditor Sanjay Rambhia, then director of Gili India Aniyath Shiv Raman Nair, Gitanjali Group Vice-President (operations) Vipul Chitalia were also produced in the court.

Firestar International is owned by Nirav Modi, while Gili India is a Gitanjali Group firm owned by Choksi.

The court sent all of them in judicial custody.

The CBI has registered cases against Nirav Modi and his companies, and Choksi in connection with the PNB fraud.