3 ARRESTED IN PNB SCAM
Gokulnath Shetty, retired Deputy Manager of Punjab National bank, Manoj Hanumant Kharat; single window operator at the bank and Hemant Dahyalal Bhatt, authorised signatory of Diamond R US, Stellar Diamond and Solar Exports have been arrested on Saturday early morning by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for the loss of Rs 280.70 crores to Punjab National Bank during 2017. They were produced before the special CBI court and remanded to police custody till March 3.
Avneesh Nepalla, Deputy General Manager of PNB, had filed a First Information Report (FIR) against jeweller Nirav Modi, his brother Neeshal Modi, Nirav’s wife Ami, business partner Mehul Chinubhai Choksi who are all partners of Diamond R US, Solar exports and Stellar Diamonds and against Shetty and Kharat and other unknown persons for cheating and also abuse of official person by public servants of PNB for causing undue pecuniary advantage to the firms.
It was alleged in the FIR that Shetty and Kharat posted in the Forex Department at the Mid Corporate branch, Brady House at Mumbai fraudulently issued eight Letters of Understanding (LoU) amounting to Rs 280.70 crores on February 9, February 10 and February 14 in favour of Allahabad Bank and Axis Bank based in Hong Kong without following the prescribed procedure by obtaining required request applications, documents and approval of the authorities thereto and without making entries in the bank system
avoiding detection of the transactions, so made, transmitted SWIFT instructions to overseas branches of Indian banks for raising buyer’s credit and funding the Nostro accounts of PNB. The funds so raised for payment of import bills have not been used for such purposes in many cases.The investigation conducted so far revealed that beneficiaries of the fraud of Rs 280.70 crores of public money namely Nirav, his wife Ami, his brother Neeshal and partner Choksi, are all partners of the firms. The accused have fled the country in the first week of January 2018 before the bank could register a complaint with CBI in Mumbai. Shetty in conspiracy with Kharat fraudulently issued LoUs without sanction and without having the powers to do so and thereby abused his official position as a public servant. Investigations further revealed that documents or applications for issue of fraudulent LoUs were not available with PNB. The amount of fraudulent LoUs issued are likely to be reportedly around Rs 6000 crores. Shetty, Kharat and Bhatt were called to the CBI office at BKC to understand the modus operandi about the scam. They were all interrogated about the modalities for issuing LoUs to Modi group and his associates and the reasons for which LoUs were not entered into the CBS system of PNB and whether this was done within the financial powers of Shetty and the role of other senior officers of PNB. Kharat had acted upon Shetty’s directions in making and verifying SWIFT messages before the latter authorised and transmitted them during 2017. Kharat admitted that it was happening regularly and many other officers whose names are yet to be revealed were involved in the scam.
As per the authorisation of Modi, Bhatt and Kavita Mankikar were authorised to sign on behalf of the firms with an Account Opening Form. Bhatt is also a Director in 15 to 16 companies of the Modi group and is aware about the modus operandi of the scam. Bhatt’s lawyer advocate Yashwardhan Tiwari argued before the court that his client’s name was not even mentioned in the FIR. The Special Public Prosecutor Om Prakash argued before the court that the accused were not co-operating with the investigations and missing documents related to issue of fraudulent LoUs were to be recovered. He argued before the court that instead of money going to foreign exporters, was transferred to Allahabad and Axis Bank at Hong Kong.