Rs 90 crore was exchanged for billions at PNB hours before PM announced notes ban: Majeed Memon

Senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and criminal lawyer Majeed Memon has alleged that hours before the announcement of demonetisation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as much as Rs 90 crore cash was taken to one of the branches of Punjab National Bank. According to him, the money was exchanged for billions or something.

Calling for an investigation into the alleged incident, Memon said that this was reported during the time absconding billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi left India.

The allegations by Memon come a day after the government on Saturday revoked the passports of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi who are at the forefront of the alleged multi-million Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud.

Last week, the passport issuing authority in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had suspended the validity of passports of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi with immediate effect for a period of four weeks. Their passports were suspended on the advice of the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

Meanwhile, the Congress has accused the Centre of being aware of all details. Hours after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley slammed regulators for failing to detect the fraud, 

Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal had said, “Why blame only regulator? What about the political system and the fact that Finance Ministry must've known about it.”

Nirav Modi, who holds an Indian passport, had left India on January 1, while his brother Nishal, a Belgian citizen, departed from the country on the same day. Modi's wife Ami, a US citizen, left on January 6 and his maternal uncle and business associate Mehul Choksi left on January 4.

The ED had also issued summons for appearance to the billionaire diamond merchant and Choksi in connection with its money laundering probe in the Rs 11,400 crore fraud in PNB.

Both Modi and Choksi were summoned under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and asked to depose within a week's time. The ED has registered a PMLA case against them and others based on a CBI FIR which was the result of a PNB complaint.