Fraud LoUs were prepared at Vipul Ambani’s office, CBI informs court

CBI gets remand of 4 accused till Mar 17

A special CBI court on Monday extended the police custody of Vipul Ambani and five other accused in the multicrore Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam, till March 19.

The special Judge Sardar Tamboli, presiding over the special CBI court extended the police custody of Ambani and five others till March 19.

This comes after the CBI sought an extension of the custody of all these accused to unravel the details of this ‘humongous’ scam and also to bring out more names and documentary and oral evidence connected to the scam.

According to the central agency, Ambani was fully aware of the fraudulent and illegal Letters of Understanding (LoUs) which were being issued by prime accused Gokulnath Shetty, the retired deputy manager of the PNB bank at Brady House branch. The agency claims Ambani being the president (finance) of the Firestar Group of Companies visited and met not only officials of the Brady House branch but also the officials of PNB circle office and zonal office at Mumbai and the Head office at New Delhi.

In its remand report, the CBI claimed several applications of fraudulent LoUs were recovered at Ambani’s Firestar office premises.

Apart from Ambani and others, the special court also remanded four accused – Manish Bosamiya, Miten Pandya (of Firestar Group) and Sanjay Rambhia (auditor of Firestar) along with Aniyath Nair (of Gili group), in police custody till March 17. The four accused were arrested on Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, the Bombay HC on Monday directed the special CBI court to allow Vipul Ambani, an accused in the multi-crore defrauding of PNB, to consult his advocate in the court premises. A single-judge bench of Justice Nitin Sambre has asked the special court, which is currently dealing with the PNB scam to allow Ambani to consult his advocates.