PNB fraud: Registrar of Companies didn't get complaint from prime minister's office: Union minister Shiv Pratap Shukla

New Delhi: The Registrar of Companies (RoC) has not received any complaint forwarded by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) regarding the fraud in the state-owned Punjab National Bank (PNB), Parliament was informed on Tuesday. PNB in February this year unearthed a fraud of over Rs 11,000 crore at one of its Mumbai branches allegedly carried out by fugitive billionaire diamond jeweller Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi by fraudulently getting Letters of Credit (LoC) in connivance with a few bank officials. The fraud amount has subsequently inflated to over Rs 14,300 crore as on date. [caption id=“attachment_4388717” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AP.[/caption] “Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has apprised that it did not forward any complaint to the Registrar of Companies either on 26 July, 2016 or 29 July, 2016,” Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla said in a written reply in Rajya Sabha. An online petition received on 26 July, 2016 as forwarded to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs through the centralised public grievances redress and monitoring system on 27 July, 2016, he said further. He was replying to a question whether the complaint connected to the PNB fraud received by PMO in July 2016 was sent to the RoC during that time. The scam-hit lender posted a loss of Rs 13,416.91 crore for the last quarter of 2017-18, the biggest ever by any domestic lender, as bad loans surged. With gross NPAs hitting over 18 percent of gross advances by end of March 2018, the bank had bad loans at Rs 86,620 crore. Net NPA were Rs 48,684.29 crore (11.24 percent of net advances). For the full fiscal 2017-18, the bank posted a standalone loss of Rs 12,282.82 crore against a profit of Rs 1,324.80 crore in 2016-17. A multi-agency probe is already on to nab Modi and Choksi, who have fled the country to evade arrests and subjected to further investigation.