PNB shares down over 3% after internal report blames procedural lapses for Nirav Modi fraud

The stock declined 3.08% to settle at ₹83.40 on the BSE. During the day, it dropped 3.66% to ₹82.90.

Shares of PNB fell by over 3% on Thursday after an internal enquiry by the scam-hit firm found that the ₹14,000-crore fraud perpetrated by Nirav Modi took place with the help of some officials of the bank’s Brady House branch in Mumbai and also due to procedural lapses.

A man reads a newspaper outside a branch of Punjab National Bank (PNB) in Ahmedabad.(Reuters File Photo)

The stock declined 3.08% to settle at ₹83.40 on the BSE. During the day, it dropped 3.66% to ₹82.90. On the NSE, shares of the company fell by 3.30% to close at ₹83.35. The company’s market valuation went down by ₹730.82 crore to ₹23,023.18 crore.

In terms of equity volume, 13.81 lakh shares of the company were traded on the BSE and over one crore shares changed hands at NSE during the day.

According to sources, the internal enquiry completed before handing over case to investigative agencies alleged that a group of employees at the Brady House branch issued fake letter of undertaking over several years to help Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi raise billions of dollars in foreign credit, leading to country’s biggest-ever bank fraud.

The over-200 pages internal report also alleged procedural lapses at several levels that go far beyond India and some of the branches of other state-owned lenders, sources said.