CBI files DA case Gokulnath Shetty, prime accused in PNB scam

NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a disproportionate assets (DA) case against retired deputy manager of Punjab National Bank –

Gokulnath Shetty

, one of the main accused in the Nirav Modi case, and his wife Asthalata Shetty. The agency says Shettys amassed Rs 2.63 crore DA between April 1, 2011 and May 31, 2017, which was 238 per cent more than their known sources of income.


Shetty is key accused in the PNB scam involving fugitives Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi as he issued Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) illegally in favour of their companies, using which the diamond merchants cheated the bank of Rs 13,578 crore. He was arrested in February.

Ashalata, a clerk at Indian Bank, CBI says, has been found to have actively assisted her husband in the concealment and acquisition of assets raised from ill-gotten wealth and thereby has abetted the offence of possession of disproportionate assets.

The scam surfaced in January this year.

Shetty, who was posted at Brady House branch between 2010 and 2017, was permitted to use unlimited passing powers even though he was entitled to pass cash transactions and transfers worth between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 25 lakh only.

Shetty, a junior rank official, was enjoying User Level 60 or more in PNB, which gave him full powers in Finacle, used for verifying large transactions which otherwise would have ensured intervention of higher officials and checked the wrong doings, the probe finds.

An internal PNB investigation report says that Shetty had passed 13,501 transactions above Rs 1 crore, with a maximum entry of Rs 211 crore in June 2015. “Further, it was noticed that in 2017, he was also the maker and checker of the entries. It means that it should have created the suspicion for incumbent of he would have checked DMS (daily monitoring system) reports”.

Subsequently, the Brady House branch witnessed high forex turnover and transaction vouchers related to various departments were debited/credited in FOREX department with the IDs of Shetty.

Even when Shetty remained on leave, his SWIFT password was used by the Brady House branch for authorising payments in international bank branches, which was against the rules.

CBI has alleged that Gokulnath Shetty, close to his retirement in May 2017, had issued/approved 143 Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) for payments worth 3,000 crore to Nirav Modi within 63 days.

Shetty was named alongwith Punjab National Bank former MD-CEO – Usha Ananthasubramanian, two former executive directors – K V Brahmaji Rao and Sanjiv Sharan by CBI in its chargesheet.