Court releases Nirav’s ₹500-crore properties from attachment
MUMBAI: In a major relief to Punjab National Bank (PNB), the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court on Friday released the attached properties, approximately worth over ₹500 crore, which were mortgaged by Nirav Modi’s firms with the bank. The court has, this month, released properties worth a total of ₹1,000 crore, owned by Modi’s Firestar Group of Companies, paving the way for their disposal for recovering the bank’s dues.
The special court on Friday allowed the third application submitted by the bank as a head of the consortium for the release of properties worth around ₹500 crore owned by one of the group companies of Modi.
The PMLA court had earlier this month allowed PNB’S two applications, seeking the release of properties which were mortgaged by the bank against the credit facilities extended to Modi’s firms, Firestar Diamond International Private Ltd (FDIPL) and Firestar International Ltd (FIL). As per the detailed order, the bank had sought release of FIL’S properties worth ₹108.3 crore, and FDIPL’S assets worth ₹331.6 crore. However, the third application was kept pending owing to some legal clarification sought by the court from the bank.
During the probe into PNB fraud case, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), had attached many properties owned by Modi.
During the proceedings for confiscation of Modi’s assets, several properties were exempted after the interested parties had raised objections. The banks and its consortium, too, had objected to the confiscation of the properties which had been mortgaged with them by Modi’s firms to avail credit facilities. The bank had thus approached the court earlier this year, seeking the release of these mortgaged properties, which were exempted from confiscation but were attached by ED.