Prompt measures and authorized actions have been taken by the Indian authorities and PNB helped in securing the extradition of diamantaire Nirav Modi by the UK on Friday, a senior official stated.
UK Home Secretary Priti Patel Friday signed off on the order to extradite Nirav Modi, needed in India on fraud and cash laundering expenses associated to the estimated USD 2-billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) rip-off case.
According to the federal government official, a rip-off of this magnitude had the potential to create instability in the monetary sector however the deft dealing with saved your complete public sector banking area from the disaster and litigation.
The then monetary providers secretary Rajiv Kumar, who’s now Election Commissioner, had directed PNB to file an FIR with the CBI resulting in unearthing of the case in January 2018.
Besides, a case was filed in opposition to the fugitive on the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT). The Mumbai DRT issued an order for the restoration of about Rs 7,300 crore from Nirav Modi and others in 2019.
Later, banks have been allowed to hunt passport particulars from debtors searching for loans of over Rs 50 crore.
According to the Finance Ministry official, it was the Nirav Modi rip-off that led to this choice in order that banks might take well timed motion and inform the related authorities to stop fraudsters from fleeing the nation.
Heads of public sector banks in October 2019 got the facility to request for issuance of look-out circulars (LOCs) in opposition to suspects, even earlier than enforcement companies file FIRs in opposition to them, the official stated.
Following the advice of an inter-ministerial panel beneath the then monetary providers secretary, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in October 2019 revised its 2017 tips to incorporate heads of PSBs — the chairman or managing director and CEO — in the checklist of officers who could make requests for LOCs.
To put a examine on offenders fleeing the nation, the federal government introduced the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act 2018.
Nirav Modi had escaped from India on January 1, 2018, earlier than the registration of a case in opposition to him. A non-bailable arrest warrant was issued by a trial court docket in opposition to him adopted by a pink nook discover in June 2018 by Interpol.
He was arrested by the UK Police in London in March 2019 and his repeated functions for bail have been rejected by the Westminster Magistrates’ Court and High Court, London.
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