Only politicians are accountable: Finance minister Arun Jaitley

New Delhi:  Political slugfest over the PNB scam continued unabated with the Congress on Saturday launching a fresh attack on the Modi government.  “The Prime Minister is the most expensive chawkidar (watchman) we have. Why is all this happening under his nose?,” Congress leader Kapil Sibal said.  On the other hand, finance minister Arun Jaitley shifted the onus on the banks claiming that inadequate oversight by regulators and auditors as well as sloppy bank management resulted into the Rs 11,400-crore fraud at PNB. 

Mr Jaitley felt that if needed law would be tightened to punish the fraudsters. The finance minister said, “Regulators have a very important function. Regulators ultimately decide the rules of the game and regulators have to have a third eye which is to be perpetually be open. But unfortunately in the Indian system, we politicians are accountable, the regulators are not.” Breaking his silence over the scam, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday warned of stringent action against those involved in  financial irregularities.

Meanwhile, Congress president Rahul Gandhi targeted the Modi Government alleging that the Delhi-based diamond jeweller involved in the scam “disappeared” like Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya while the government looked the other way.  Mr Gandhi tweeted, “Under Modi Ji’s ‘Jan Dhan Loot Yojana’, another scam! 390 Crore, involving a Delhi-based jeweller. Same Modus operandi as Nirav Modi. Fake LOU's. Predictably, like Mallya and Nirav, this promoter too has disappeared while the Government looked the other way.” (sic)  The CBI on Friday booked Dwarka Das Seth International Pvt Ltd for an alleged bank loan fraud of '389.85 crore towards Oriental Bank of Commerce. 

The Congress demanded that why six months after the public sector bank filed a complaint with the CBI, the agency booked the company, and Sabhya Seth, Reeta Seth, Krishna Kumar Singh, Ravi Singh — all directors of the firm — and another company named Dwarka Das Seth SEZ Incorporation. The Congress has made four demands from the PM Congress leader Mr Kapil Sibal said, “The Prime Minister should assure the nation that swift communication system of all banks will be connected to their core banking system in 30 days.” He demanded that the PM should also assure that accountability of the finance ministry, RBI and management of defaulting banks would be fixed within 60 days.