NEW DELHI: After being pulled for sitting over the complaints filed by three whistleblowers against Mehul Choksi and his company since 2015, the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) will review all the earlier complaints against the companies involved in the case.
“The investigative arm is already in. It will review all the earlier complaints filed against Mehul Choksi and his company Gitanjali Gems and Jewellery. We will also look into the earlier complaint letter sent by some party to us,” the official at SFIO told Express.
The fact that complaints were sent to the SFIO by three whistleblowers Hari Prasad, Vaibhav Khurania and SK Jain clearly alerting about the fraud conducted by Choksi, involving Punjab National Bank, became a matter of embarrassment for the government, as the department took no action. The letter, which was sent in 2015, had also named an ex-employee of Geetanjali — Santosh Srivastava, whom the letter claimed, can corroborate on the crime and will be ready to give all information.
What is interesting is that they have also warned that Choksi can flee the country without paying the bank’s due and this is exactly what happened in this case. The opposition has already used that letter and had accused that the government deliberately ignored the complaints to protect the culprits. After the public fiasco, the ministry has already pulled SFIO, for ignoring the leads given to them. It also directed them to talk to the whistleblowers if required and use their inputs to connect all the missing links in this Rs.11,400 crore trail.
The SFIO will also look into all the companies belonging to Nirav Modi, wife Ami, brother Nishal Modi and uncle Mehul Choksi.
Meanwhile, the Chief Vigilance Commissioner KV Chowdary has summoned Sunil Mehta, MD and CEO of Punjab National Bank and S K Nagpal, the chief vigilance officer of the bank to explain the vigilance failure that led to the scam. Interestingly the same bank received the Vigilance Excellence Award from the CVC for two consecutive years for internal vigilance, and compliance of the RBI directive, both of which were ignored in the case of this fraud.