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PNB scam: Home Minister Rajnath Singh assures ‘effective action’

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said “effective action” will be taken against the accused in the $1.8 billion…

PNB scam: Home Minister Rajnath Singh assures ‘effective action’

(Photo: PIB)

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said “effective action” will be taken against the accused in the $1.8 billion fraud detected by Punjab National Bank (PNB).

“Effective action is being undertaken… The administration has swung into action swiftly,” Singh said reacting to oppositions’ allegations against the Centre.

On Thursday, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the NDA government has taken “strictest” and “fastest” action against jeweller Nirav Modi accused of duping the state-owned PNB of thousands of crores but the Congress was doing politics over national interest.

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Addressing a press conference, Prasad said that the scam started in 2011 when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was in power and is the “latest in line in the legacy of corruption and fraudulence left by the Congress Party”.

The Congress on Thursday asked the Modi government to come clean on the government’s “failure” to prevent the scam and identify those who helped the alleged kingpin, billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi to flee the country.

It accused the Prime Minister’s Office and other authorities of not taking action even after a complaint was filed in July 2016.

The fraud, which includes money-laundering among others, concerns the Firestar Diamonds group in which the CBI last week booked Modi, his wife Ami, brother Nishal Modi and their maternal uncle Mehul Choksi.

It followed a complaint lodged by PNB on January 29 pertaining to an alleged cheating case of Rs 280 crore perpetrated by these four in 2011, but all the accused had already flown out of India on various dates to different locations worldwide.

Modi, along with other co-accused in the fraud, is absconding from the country and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had already issued a Look Out Circular against them on Janaury 31.

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