PNB fraud case: CBI questions four senior RBI officials

The CBI on Thursday questioned four Reserve Bank of India (RBI) officials in connection with Rs 13,500 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud, involving Nirav Modi.Those questioned includes three chief general managers and a general manager of the Central Bank.

It was not immediately clear what sort of questions were being asked by the federal police. According to the media reports, the RBI officials were also questioned in connection with alleged benefits to diamond merchant Choksi's group of companies following 80:20 gold import scheme brought by former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

It is learnt that the officials are also being quizzed with respect to the alleged benefits extended to diamond merchant Mehul Choksi group of companies due to the 80:20 gold import scheme in 2013-14.

The Central Bank has faced criticism that it failed for years to either detect the fraud or correct a breakdown of normal practices at the nation's second-largest state-run bank.

Punjab National Bank detected a 1.77 billion dollars scam in which jeweler Nirav Modi acquired fraudulent letters of undertaking from one of its branches for overseas credit from other Indian lenders.

The scam was started in 2011 and was detected in the third week of January this year, after which the PNB officials reported it to the concerned agencies.
Meanwhile, the PNB filed a second complaint with the CBI on February 13.

The CBI had received the complaint from PNB on January 28 and a case was registered in the case on January 31.

OneIndia News (with agency inputs)