Court reserves order on Rajesh Jindal’s bail plea

Mumbai: The special CBI court on Tuesday reserved its order on bail application filed by Rajesh Jindal in connection with the Rs 11,000 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam involving jeweller Nirav Modi.

Advocate A. Limosin opposed the bail application filed by Jindal. He argued before special judge Sardar Tamboli that applicant was working as a branch manager of Punjab National Bank in Mumbai during 2009 to 2011 and he was the general manager (Credit) at PNB’s head office in New Delhi at the time of his arrest. 

He further argued that the investigation conducted so far goes to show that during the tenure of this accused in Mumbai, several Letters of Undertakings (LoUs) were issued on behalf of the group firms of Nirav Modi. The CBI suspects that those LoUs were issued unauthorisedly i.e. without any sanction limit or without 100 per cent margins as required by the rules of PNB.

The court was informed that the agency is investigating these allegations and as the documents pertain to a long period of time dating back to 2009 and collection of documents is consuming considerable time.

Mr Limosin told the court that if released on bail there is likelihood that the accused would tamper with the evidence that are yet to be collected.