The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) questioned ICICI Bank and Axis Bank officials on Tuesday in connection with the ₹12,700 crore Punjab National Bank scam.
While SFIO had called Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank and Shikha Sharma, MD & CEO of Axis Bank, both the lenders had sent their representatives to meet the investigating officers, banking industry sources said.
ICICI Bank is the leader of a consortium of lenders to Mehul Choksi’s Gitanjali Gems, and has an exposure of ₹500 crore.
Earlier, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had questioned ICICI Bank Executive Director N.S. Kannan.
ICICI Bank had said it neither had issued any Letter of Undertaking (LOU) nor had any buyer’s credit exposure against LOUs with respect to the Nirav Modi group of companies as well as the Gitanjali group of companies.
On the other hand, Axis Bank does not have any exposure to Mehul Choksi or Nirav Modi firms but had discounted the Letters of Undertaking were fraudulently issued by PNB.
The benchmark equity indices fell in the last hour of trade over reports of the SFIO questioning. While ICICI Bank stocks tanked 2.64%, Axis Bank stocks fell 1.31%.
