Consortium of banks realizes Rs 7,975.27 cr by sale of assets
Out of which, assets worth Rs 15,113.91 crore have been restituted to the Public Sector Banks. In addition, assets worth Rs 335.06 crore have been confiscated by the government.
The government on Friday suspended the passports of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, accused in the Rs. 11,000 crore Punjab National Bank fraud, on the advice of the Enforcement Directorate.
The suspension is currently for a period of four weeks with immediate effect, the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.
“Nirav Deepak Modi and Mehul Chinubhai Choksi have been asked to respond within one week as to why their passports should not be impounded or revoked under Section 10(3)(c) of the Passports Act, 1967,” the ministry said.
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“If they fail to respond within the stipulated time, it will be assumed that they have responded… and the MEA will go ahead with the revocation,” it said.
Modi, who holds an Indian passport, left India on 1 January and his brother Nishal, a Belgian citizen, also departed from the country on the same day. However, whether they travelled together is to be probed. Modi’s wife Ami, a US citizen, left on 6 January and his maternal uncle and business associate Choksi left on 4 January.
At a media briefing on Friday evening, MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said his ministry was not aware of the whereabouts of Nirav Modi or Choksi. “We come into the picture when a query comes to us from investigative agencies.’’ But wherever these individuals were, they would not be able to go anywhere from there, he added.
The spokesperson vehemently denied that Nirav was part of the business delegation which accompanied Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Davos for the World Economic Forum (WEF) recently. He also rejected the claim that Nirav had a meeting with the PM on the margins of the WEF meet.
Asked for his reaction to a group photo of Prime Minister Modi with top CEOs in which Nirav can also be seen, the spokesperson said the group photo was ‘impromptu’ and taken when the PM and his delegation were going from one meeting to another.
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