New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to entertain a PIL for a probe by a special investigation team consisting of retired apex court judges and to prosecute the guilty involved in the Rs 11,400 crore scam in Punjab National Bank involving jeweler Nirav Modi and others. Advocate Manohar Lal Sharma filed this PIL expressing serious concern over the fraud committed by the PNB by issuing letter of undertaking without proper surety or bank guarantee and without entering the LoU in the bank records.
A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.M. Kanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud dismissed the PIL after the Attorney General K.K. Venugopal submitted that chargesheet had already been filed in this case and all steps are being taken to bring back Nirav Modi to India. The AG took exception to certain allegations made by the petitioner that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley were involved in the scam and Finance Ministry officials had erased the evidence.
At this juncture Justice Chandrachud told Mr. Sharma: “What kind of PILs are you filing. You read some newspaper report and straight away come to court filing it in the form of a petition and you also make personal allegations. These PILs are not PILs at all. We cannot entertain petitions with such reckless allegations when some serious issues are pending hearing.”
Mr. Sharma pointed out that ever since the scam came to light several senior bank officials were removed or transferred and the CBI has registered an FIR. He alleged that at the instance of Finance Ministry and leaders incriminating documents and evidence had already been removed from the PNB offices and further damage is likely before this court orders the SIT probe.
