11 accused in pnb fraud remanded in police custody

Mumbai: The Mumbai sessions court has remanded 11 accused in the PNB fraud case to judicial custody till March 28. None of the accused has filed a bail plea on Saturday in court but the CBI requested the court that the accused should not be released on bail as they can destroy evidence and threaten witnesses.

The CBI has alleged that the firms controlled by diamond baron Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi obtained fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) and letters of credit (LCs) worth over Rs 13,000 crore from PNB in connivance with some officials of the bank.

Modi's firms allegedly defrauded PNB of over Rs 6,500 crore, while Choksi's firms allegedly defrauded PNB of Rs 7,080 crore. Gokulnath Shetty (former deputy general manager of PNB), Manoj Kharat (single-window operator of PNB), Hemant Bhat (authorised signatory of Modi's company), and Bechhu Tiwari (then chief manager in the forex department of PNB) were produced in the court of special CBI judge, S.R. Tamboli on Saturday.

Yashwant Joshi (scale II manager in the forex department); Praful Sawant (scale I officer handling the exports section); Manish Bosamiya (former AGM, operations, Firestar International Ltd. owned by Modi); Miten Pandia (then financial manager of Firestar); Sanjay Rambhia (auditor of Firestar); Aniyath Shiv Raman Nair (then director of Gili India Ltd.); and Vipul Chitalia (VP banking operations of Gitanjali group) were also produced in the court.