PNB fraud in Supreme Court: Bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra to hear plea for probe into Nirav Modi scam on Feb 23

The Supreme Court agreed to hear a PIL for an independent inquiry to the Rs 11,400 crore PNB scam on Tuesday.

Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra will hear the Public Interest Litigation on February 23. The PIL has been filed by lawyer Vineet Dhanda.

Hit by the massive banking fraud in India’s history, PNB continues to register a sharp slump in the stock market. Meanwhile, the Fitch Ratings placed the bank's Viability Rating of 'bb' on Rating Watch Negative (RWN), following the Nirav Modi scam. The rating agency says it will resolve the ‘Rating Watch’ once more clarity emerges on extent of control failures and the impact on PNB's financial position.

PNB detected the scam last week, wherein noted jewellery designer Nirav Modi acquired fraudulent letters of undertaking from one of its branches for overseas credit from other Indian lenders.

The state-owned lender lodged two financial fraud complaints of Rs 11400 crore and Rs 280 crore against Nirav Modi, his family members and Mehul Choksi, owner of Gitanjali Gems.

The probe agencies continue to crackdown on the erring officials in the PNB fraud case. On Monday, three officers of PNB, Brady House branch, Mumbai were arrested this evening in the Nirav Modi fraud case.

These arrests are in addition to the three earlier arrests. Chief Manager, in-charge of Forex department, Bechhu Tiwari; Scale II, manager, Forex department, Yashwant Joshi; and Scale I, officer, Export, Praful Sawant have been arrested.

Tiwari is responsible for supervising the work of Gokulnath Shetty and his manager to ensure entry of authorised swift messages only from the system. He had full knowledge of the activities of Gokulnath Shetty, a retired deputy manager of PNB's foreign exchange department.

Joshi is responsible for supervising Shetty; ensuring daily reports of swift and Core Banking Solutions (CBS) entries. He had full knowledge of the activities of Shetty but took no action. Sawant is responsible for checking the SWIFT messages daily and report. Searches have begun at their residences located at Navi Mumbai, Andheri, Dombivili.  Meanwhile, searches are also going on at Nirav Modi group offices at Peninsula Business Park, Lower Parel. The search at PNB Brady House Fort Mumbai concluded earlier this evening.

(With inputs from agencies)