by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
New Delhi : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday said it has sent request for attachment of fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi’s Hong Kong assets worth Rs 255 crore in the multi-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) loan default case.
The financial probe agency sought attachment of the assets by Hong Kong authorities under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act by sending a provisional attachment order in the form of Letters Rogatory. The ED said it has till date attached properties worth Rs 4,744 crore in connection with the case in India and abroad.
Earlier in October, the ED had attached assets in India and sought seizure abroad of properties worth Rs 218 crore belonging to Nirav Modi and his maternal uncle Mehul Choksi. The two had fled the country before the scam broke.
They are accused of defrauding state-run PNB of Rs 13,500 crore.
Nirav Modi and Choksi of Gitanjali Group are under probe by both the Central Bureau of Investigation and the ED. The ED had on May 24 and May 26 filed charge sheets against the two.
Non-bailable warrants have also been issued against them.
The Interpol had issued a Red Corner Notice (RCN) against Nirav Modi, his brother Neeshal and sister Purvi — both Belgian citizens — as well as Mihir Bhansali and Aditya Nanvati, close associates of Modi.
However, an RCN request against Choksi, who acquired Antiguan citizenship earlier in 2018, is pending with the Interpol.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance
By Mayabhushan Nagvenkar,
Panaji : Lack of ethical grounding in corporate governance is the reason behind scandals like the one involving diamantaire Nirav Modi in India, just as absence of values in business practices triggered global accounting scandals like Enron and WorldCom, says Ajit Parulekar, Director, Goa Institute of Management, the state’s top B-school.
Speaking to IANS following the announcement of a six-month intensive workshop for the management school’s faculty and Board of Governors on Transformative Teachers conducted by The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Parulekar also said that after the workshop the institute’s trained faculty would work with primary schools in Goa to promote value-based education.
“The world over, you have issues of governance which led to things like Enron and WorldCom. India has not been spared in any of this. Nirav Modi and Punjab National Bank and so many other things that have happened, shows clearly that corporate governance leaves a lot to be desired,” Parulekar said.
Modi is a fugitive high-profile diamond merchant who is accused of defrauding the Punjab National Bank of over Rs 11,000 crore and is being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
“Eventually we hope that this is going to help a wider audience, not just through our faculty and board and our students. We also wish to get some of our faculty trained in value-based education, who in turn will work with primary schools in Goa. We will then be able to bring in value-based education to primary schools in Goa,” Parulekar said.
The workshop, he said, would help influence faculty in the way they choose to conduct their courses.
Priyadarshi, who leads the resource team for the workshop, said that ethical decision-making ensures fair and transparent mechanisms in governance practices and can curb corrupt mindsets.
“It is crucial to the long-term stability of any organisation or institution and benefits all stakeholders. It is essential to the well-being of society… Individuals who create and safeguard existing systems or structures must have some grounding in ethics to minimise conditions that perpetuate corrupt models and mindsets,” he said.
Ethical learning, he said, should permeate all forms of learning and should not be limited to a single course or subject.
“We live in a complex world and people need to learn relevance and applications of ethics and value-based learnings so it does not remain an isolated cerebral exercise,” he said.
Commenting on the six month intensive programme announced by GIM, Priyadarshi said, that it is designed as a very hands-on approach initiative “in the spirit of most of MIT programmes for effective behavioral and social change”.
“We believe in longitudinal goals which requires continuous engagement and practice of the discipline. Habits are hard to change especially when there’s is a lack of will to do so. The programme helps deepen one’s understanding of the importance and motivation for such positive changes by working through aspects of values, empathy, emotions, meaning and sense-making,” Priyadarshi said.
(Mayabhushan Nagvenkar can be contacted at mayabhushan.n@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
New Delhi : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday said it seized valuables worth over Rs 36 crore of absconding diamond jeweller Nirav Modi in connection with an ongoing probe into the Rs 14,500 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case.
An ED official told IANS that joint searches with the CBI were carried from Thursday to early Saturday at Nirav Modi’s palatial ‘Samudra Mahal’ residence in Mumbai.
The items seized included Rs 10-crore diamond ring, antique jewellery worth Rs 15 crore, high-end watches valued at Rs 1.40 crore, Rs 10 crore-worth paintings by renowned artists including M.F. Hussain, K.K. Hebbar and Amrita Shergil.
The searches were conducted as part of a money trail by the ED and CBI after cases were registered against Nirav Modi and his business partner and uncle Mehul Choksi of the Gitanjali Group for defrauding the banks.
Choksi and Nirav Modi fled the country in January around a month before the PNB filed its first complaint against them. They are still at large.
So far, the ED has carried out searches at some 251 properties across the country and seized diamond, gold, pearls, precious and semi-precious stones.
The ED has also claimed to have attached immovable properties belonging to their business groups to the tune of Rs 7,638 crore.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : The CBI on Thursday said that it has registered a fresh case against diamantaire Nirav Modi for causing a loss of Rs 321 crore to Punjab National Bank (PNB) by availing different credit facilities between 2013 and 2017.
According to a Central Bureau of Investigation official, the case was registered after the bureau received a fresh complaint from the PNB on Sunday.
Former finance president of Nirav Modi’ Firestar Diamonds International Ltd. Vipul Ambani, chief finance officer Ravi Gupta, other directors and officials of the company, and unidentified public servants of the bank were also named in the complaint, they said.A
This is the second CBI case in which Nirav Modi has been named by the investigating agency.
In its complaint to the CBI, the bank alleged that during its internal investigation it had spotted circular transactions between the diamantaire promoted partnership firms namely — Solar Exports, Stellar Diamonds and Diamond R Us — and Firestar group of companies.
The head office of the bank had declared the accounts of Firestar Diamonds and Firestar International as fraud and reported it to the Reserve Bank of India on Sunday, it said.
Nirav Modi, along with his uncle Mehul Choksi of Gitanjali Group, has been accused of defrauding the PNB of Rs 12,600 crore, with Rs 1,300 crore being added to the fraud kitty on February 26.
The CBI had filed the first FIR in the scam on February 14 against Nirav Modi, his wife Ami, brother Nishal, Choksi and his firms Diamond R US, Solar Exports and Stellar Diamond.
Modi, his family and Choksi had left the country in early January.
The CBI filed a second FIR on February 15 over a Rs 4,886.72-crore fraud against Choksi’s Gitanjali Group.
To date, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has carried out searches at over 198 locations across the country and seized properties worth nearly Rs 6,000 crore, while the CBI has arrested at least 19 persons in the case so far.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics

Ravi Shankar Prasad
New Delhi : Amid attacks from the Congress over the Rs. 12,600-crore PNB scam, the BJP on Monday accused former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram of aiding jewellers Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi — main accused in the multi-crore bank fraud case — through an 80:20 gold import scheme.
The Bharatiya Janata Party BJP) also targeted Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and sought answers from him on the issue.
Talking to reporters here, BJP leader and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that Chidambaram gave his “blessings and benefits under the 80:20 scheme” to seven private jewellers on May 16, 2014, the day the results of Lok Sabha polls were announced.
“These seven jewellers included Geetanjali and Star jewellers,” Prasad said.
He said the 80:20 gold import scheme was started in August 2013 under the UPA government and was repealed by the Narendra Modi government three months after it came to power.
Prasad said earlier only Metals and Minerals Trading Corporation and public sector undertakings had the right to import gold, but that was changed.
“There was round-tripping under the scheme,” he alleged.
The 80:20 scheme was brought for nominated banks/ agencies/ entities to “rationalise” import of gold in any form to tame the current account deficit.
Prasad said exit polls had predicted that the Congress would lose elections and Chidambaram would not have been Finance Minister after the results were out.
“It was expected of the then learned Finance Minister that he will follow constitutional norms (of not taking important decisions),” Prassad said.
“Chidambaram should say, Rahul Gandhi should say why benefits were passed on to seven private companies under 80:20 scheme on May 16. The nation wants to know,” he asked.
He said Chidambaram’s order was subsequently cleared by the Reserve Bank of India on May 21.
“Mr. Chidambaram, is it ‘jumla’ or corruption? We want that real picture of Chidambaram should come before people. Mr. Chidambaram, please reply is it jumla, blatant favouritism, malafide conduct or rampant corruption?” Prasad said.
He alleged that the Congress was trying to spread misinformation about and fear against the BJP among people.
“Congress should reply who were the people lobbying for Geetanjali and what was the cut?” he said.
Prasad also targeted former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the increase in stressed assets of banks under the UPA government.
He said that the total advance given by banks in 2008 was Rs 18.06 lakh crore which rose to Rs 52.15 lakh crore in March 2014.
Prasad said that stressed assets of banks were pegged at 36 per cent in March 2014 but these subsequently rose to 82 per cent.
“Several times the real picture was not allowed to come on bank records during the UPA rule. The economic structure of the country was shattered by the Congress,” he said.
The Minister stressed there had been no NPAs (non-performing assets) in the loans given under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.
“Under the so-called economist Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the entire banking system was completely sought to be derailed because of interventions, because of pressures, because of patronage,” Prasad said.
The Congress has been targeting the government, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the Rs 12,600-crore PNB bank fraud case and seeking answers from then over Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi being able to leave the country.
—IANS