India's top women bankers Chanda Kochhar and Shikha Sharma, the managing director and chief executive officer ICICI Bank and Axis Bank, respectively, have been summoned for questioning in the Rs 12,000 crore PNB scam case. The duo has been summoned by Serious Frauds Investigation Office, according to news media reports. The reports said Kochhar was questioned on Sunday and Monday as well.
Details are awaited.
Soon after the exposure of the PNB scam, Axis Bank had stated that while it had in the past done transactions against PNBs authenticated letters of undertakings, the private sector lender had since sold down all the referred transactions.
"In the normal course of trade business, the bank, through the overseas branches, undertakes transactions against LoUs (Letters of Undertaking) issued by other banks. These amounts are then credited to the LoU issuing bank's Nostro accounts. Axis Bank has in the past undertaken such transactions with PNB against their authenticated SWIFT LoUs. Axis Bank is also an active participant in the secondary market for such transactions, and the bank has sold down all of the referred transactions," it said.
The accused PNB officials had allegedly sent these messages to Indian banks—Canara Bank, State Bank of India, Bank of India, Axis Bank, Allahabad Bank—located in Antwerp, Hong Kong, Bahrain, Mauritius, Frankfurt without making entries in the banking software about the LoUs.
Meanwhile, the CBI told a Mumbai court on Monday that violation of norms for issuance of Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) to benefit billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi had been going on since 2010. The agency, which secured a 12-day remand of four accused arrested on Sunday, explained the modus operandi involved in the alleged Rs 12,636-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud before the special CBI court.
An LoU would be issued to one of the firms of Modi and Choksi, and after the money was credited to the applicants' account, a new LoU would be obtained to "adjust" the earlier one, the CBI lawyer said.