CBI quizzes top PNB management

New Delhi, February 24

The CBI today questioned Punjab National Bank Managing Director-cum-CEO Sunil Mehta and Executive Director KV Brahmaji Rao in connection with the Rs 11,300-crore bank fraud case, while the ED went on with the seizure of fraud accused diamantaire Nirav Modi’s assets.

Both bank officials were called at the CBI’s Mumbai branch and were questioned for over eight hours. 

Mehta and Rao were questioned for the first time ever since the CBI filed the first FIR against Nirav, wife Ami, brother Nishal, uncle Mehul Choksi and his firms Diamond R US, Solar Exports and Stellar Diamond.

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Nirav, his family and Choksi left the country in early January. The FIR mentions a fraud of around Rs 6,400 crore. The CBI also filed the second FIR in the case on February 15 for Rs 4,886.72-crore fraud against the Gitanjali group headed by Choksi. Letters of Undertaking and Foreign Letters of Credit were used to raise and rollover the amount over several years before the fraud came to light. 

Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is also probing the financial angle in the case, said it had attached Nirav Modi’s 21 immovable properties worth Rs 523.72 crore. 

The assets include a farm house in Alibaug (Rs 42.7 crore) near Mumbai seashore, a solar power plant spread over 53 acres in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar (Rs 70 crore) and another 135 acres in Ahmednagar (Rs 2.2 crore), along with other residential and office properties worth Rs 408.82 crore in Mumbai and Pune.

The ED on Friday said it had frozen Nirav’s bank account and shares worth Rs 43 crore. It had earlier seized bank deposits, shares and luxury cars worth over Rs 100 crore belonging to the businessman and his group. 

The agency has also frozen mutual funds and shares worth Rs 7.8 crore of Nirav Modi and Rs 86.72 crore belonging to his uncle Choksi. The ED action comes in the wake of its ongoing probe — along with the CBI — against the two and many others, including directors of their companies and bank officials, into the alleged bank fraud. — Agencies