MUMBAI: A special CBI court on Friday finally granted bail to Rajesh Jindal, then assistant general manager in PNB's (Punjab National Bank) Brady House branch, where the multi-crore fraud began.
This was the third bail application filed by Jindal, after his two previous attempts to secure bail had been rejected by the same court.
Jindal was general manager (Credit) in the bank's head office in New Delhi, when he was arrested in February this year.
Jindal, the then assistant general manager, was posted and functioning as branch head of PNB's mid-corporate branch, Brady House, Mumbai from end-2009 to mid-2011.
The central agency in its charge-sheet has stated that in criminal conspiracy with prime accused Nirav Modi, Neeshal Modi and some other accused, Jindal had allowed issuance of four letters of undertaking (LoUs) in March 2011, in abuse of his official position as public servant.
This, the CBI says, was done knowing fully well that there was no sanctioned limit for issue of LoUs and without obtaining 100 per cent margin and without charging the required commission.
It is in evidence, the agency says that Jindal had instructed Gokulnath Shetty in an unauthorised manner, saying that the borrowers will bring the margin subsequently.
The PNB scam refers to an over Rs 13,000 crore scam, in which some officials of the public sector bank in connivance with companies of diamantaires Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi allegedly issued fraudulent LoUs, thus making the bank liable to the amount.