A special court on Tuesday sent three suspended Punjab National Bank (PNB) officials — Bechchu Tiwari, Yashwant Joshi, and Praful Sawant — to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) custody till March 3.
Judge Sardar Tamboli said fraud of ₹6,000 crorehad been committed and there was a possibility of involvement of bank officers in diverting the money of the bank.
The offence needed to be investigated and the investigating officer had the accused with various documents.
The court said, “The offence has a wide effect on the economy of the nation. Therefore, fair chance needs to be given to the IO for further investigation and accused are remanded to CBI custody until March 3.”
The CBI’s counsel argued that all the accused had illegally given benefits to private persons, and all the transactions were convoluted and voluminous. He sought 14-day custody for the accused and said even after Gokulnath Shetty, the then Deputy Manager at the PNB, retired, the illegal benefits continued and they needed time to get information on more people who may be involved in the scam.
Advocate Prasanna Bangale, representing all the three accused, said, Mr. Tiwari has not sanctioned any document on his signatures. He said Mr. Joshi had reported to the branch head about the lack of collateral and lack of margin for sanctions in the past and that he was the reason the case was eventually registered and brought to light.
Remand application
The Hindu has seen the CBI’s remand application that mentions the roles played by Mr. Shetty, Manoj Kharat, the then single window operator at the PNB, and Hemant Bhatt, authorised signatory for Diamond R US, Stellar Diamonds and Solar Exports.
The application points out “that Mr. Joshi, manager scale-II, Forex Dept, PNB during the period of 2015 to 2018, did not deliberately submit daily reports in respect of SWIFT messages and aided and abetted in the conspiracy to cheat PNB to of hundreds of crores of rupees. His deliberate acts of omissions led to the continuance of concealment and large-scale liabilities of PNB to foreign banks.”
