ED likely to seize Rs 7k-cr Nirav Modi assets soon Agency seeks declaration to categorise absconding diamantaire as fugitive 21 PSBs lost Rs 25,775 cr in bank frauds last fiscal

The Enforcement Department (ED) is set to move a special court in Mumbai to seek permission for "immediate confiscation" of about Rs 7,000 crore assets of designer diamond jeweller Nirav Modi under the recently promulgated Fugitive Economic Offenders Ordinance.

The agency, empowered by the Union government to enact the new power in the country, will seek an official declaration to categorise Nirav Modi as a "fugitive" based on its prosecution complaint (charge sheet) filed before a special court in Mumbai last week under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

On May 24, the ED had filed its first charge sheet in the over $2 billion PNB fraud case involving diamantaire Nirav Modi and his associates stating that over Rs 6,400 crore of bank funds were allegedly laundered abroad to dummy companies by him and others. The court is expected to take cognisance of the 12,000 page charge sheet on Monday and the counsel for the agency will subsequently seek its permission to in- voke the provisions of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Ordinance against Modi and immediately begin the procedure to confiscate all the assets "of and linked to" Modi in India and abroad, a senior official said. It is expected, the official said, that assets worth Rs 7,000 crore can be confiscated in the money laundering and the PNB fraud corruption case against Nirav Modi, under the stringent fugitive offenders ordinance.

The central probe agency had recently begun the work to bring together the existing cases of high-value fugitives and bank loan defaulters for getting them notified under the new legislation. INDORE: Twenty-one state banks have incurred losses totalling Rs 25,775 crore due to banking frauds in the financial year 201718, a Right to Information reply has stated. The PNB had incurred the highest loss of Rs 6461.13 crore due to different cases of fraud during the fiscal that ended on March 31 this year, Chandras ekhar Gaud, who had filed the RTI with RBI, said on Sunday.

He added that the reply, which was sent to him on May 15, did not specif y details of any particular case of banking fraud. The RTI reply stated that the State Bank of India had, during this period, incurred losses of Rs 2390.75 crore due to various cases of banking fraud.

In the given period, the Bank of India had incurred a loss of Rs 2,224.86 crore, Bank of Baroda's losses stood at Rs 1,928.25 crore, Allahabad Bank at Rs 1,520.37 crore, Andhra Bank at Rs 1,303.30 crore and Uco Bank at Rs 1,224.64 crore. The RTI reply informed that the IDBI Bank incur red losses of Rs 1,116.53 crore, Union Bank had losses of Rs 1,095.84 crore, Central Bank of India of Rs 1,084.50 crore, Bank of Maharashtra of Rs 1,029.23 crore and Indian Overseas Bank had incurred a loss of Rs 1,015.79 crore.

The RBI has clarified in the RTI that only those cases of fraud, involving a sum of over Rs 1 lakh, were included in the list. It, however, did not disclose the numbers of cases or the nature of fraud. Other banks, as per the RTI, that faced losses due to fraud during this period were Corporation Bank with a loss of Rs 970.89 crore, United Bank of India with Rs 880.53 crore, Oriental Bank of Commerce with Rs 650.28 crore and Syndicate Bank with Rs 455.05 crore.