Court granted bail to Subash Parab, close aid of Nirav Modi in Rs.13,000 crore fraud in PNB

A special PMLA court on Tuesday granted bail to Subash Parab, a close aide of fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi, in the multi-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam case.

Parab was a deputy general manager (finance) at Firestar Diamond, a firm owned by Modi, and was deported to India from Cairo in Egypt in April 2022.

Special PMLA judge S M Menjonge allowed the Parab’s bail plea, citing that it appeared from the bail application that the accused was not beneficiary of the proceeds of crime.

Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi are accused of duping PNB, a public sector bank, of Rs 13,000 crore using letters of undertaking (LoUs) and foreign letters of credit (FLCs) by bribing its officials at the Brady House branch in Mumbai.

The companies of Modi and Choksi took loans from banks abroad using the PNB’s LoUs, but did not repay them, thus transferring the liability to the bank.