Absconding billionaire Nirav Modi blames PNB for mess, says ‘support my efforts’

Mumbai: Absconding diamantaire Nirav Modi, who is under investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Department for allegedly committing fraud amounting to Rs 11,300 crore against Punjab National Bank, wrote a letter to the bank’s management stating that its overzealousness has shut the doors on Modi’s ability to clear the dues.

In the letter Modi wrote on February 15-16 to the PNB management, he pegged the amount his companies owes to the bank under Rs 5,000 crore.

Here are 10 things that Nirav Modi wrote in his letter to Punjab National Bank

1. Modi said PNB’s erroneously cited liability resulted in a media frenzy which led to immediate search and seizure of operations, and which in turn resulted in Firestar International and Firestar Diamond International effectively ceasing to be going-concerns. This thereby jeopardised the company’s ability to discharge the dues of the group to the banks.

2. In the anxiety to recover the dues immediately, despite his offer, he said, PNB’s actions have destroyed his brand and the business and have now restricted the bank’s ability to recover all the dues leaving a trail of unpaid debts.

3. Valuing his domestic business at around Rs 6,500 crore, he said “this could have helped reduce/discharge the debt to the banking system,” but quickly added that this is not possible as all his bank accounts have been frozen and assets have been sealed or seized.

4. He goes on to state that PNB had time and again acknowledged that “the buyers credit facility has been extended by it to the three partnership firms since several years; that there has been no default on the part of any of these firms over all these years; that money has gone through PNB over all these years for the repayments of the advances given by the overseas bank branches under the buyers credit.

5. Firestar International and Firestar Diamond International have never been in default to any bank, and the bankers are fully secured, he said.

6. He also states that PNB has over the years been earning bank charges to the tune of crores of rupees on the buyers credit facility extended by PNB to the three partnership firms and that PNB has extended the money to the firm’s buyers as well from where also it has been receiving full payments, with interest and on time all, these years.

7. On the valuables that CBI/ED searches yielded Rs 5,649 crore, he said “these, and other assets of the group and the three firms could have settled all the amounts due to banks. However, now that stage appears to have passed.”

8. He requested the bank to be fair, and support my efforts to make good all the amounts that are found due by my group to all banks.

9. Owning up everything, he said the bank has wrongly named his brother, who is not at all concerned with the operations of the three firms or other companies.

10. “Whatever may be the consequences I may face for my actions, the haste was, in my humble submission, unwarranted,” Modi conluded and requested the bank to permit payment of salaries to 2,200 employees from the balance lying in the current accounts.