AMN / NEW DELHI
Finance Ministry Tuesday directed Public Sector Banks (PSBs) to probe all NPA accounts of over Rs 50 crore for possible fraud and accordingly report the cases to CBI.
In a tweet, Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar said the managing directors of PSBs have been directed to detect bank frauds and refer cases to the CBI.
He said the PSBs have also been asked to involve Enforcement Directorate and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence for violations of PMLA, FEMA or Export-Import norms.
The direction comes amid state-owned lender PNB reporting 12,700 crore rupees fraud through alleged fraudulent misuse of letters of an undertaking by jeweller Nirav Modi and associates. Other PSBs too have approached investigating agencies as borrowers have not returned loans.
The Ministry has also asked the banks, with combined gross NPAs of about 8.5 lakh crore rupees, to go in for prompt fraud identification and take action within prescribed deadlines.
Mr. Kumar said banks will also have to seek borrower status report from Central Economic Intelligence Bureau (CEIB) on the account turning NPA and CEIB will have to revert in a week.