New Delhi, Feb 20 (UNI) Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has blamed Chartered Accountants (CAs) and Auditors for the Rs 11,300 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam and asked them to introspect what they were doing?
In his first reaction on the biggest bank scam, Finance Minister said, “What were auditors doing? If both internal and external auditors have looked other way and failed to detect then I think CA professionals must introspect.”
Addressing the 41st Annual Meeting of Association of Development Financing Institutions in Asia and the Pacific (ADFIAP) on Tuesday, Mr Jaitley also blamed Supervisory agencies and said that they also must introspect what are the additional mechanisms they have to put in place.
Finance Minister said that the Government has given authority to bank managements to work with autonomy but with greater accountability to discharge this authority with responsibility.
He said that system of banking depends on trust, the relationship of borrower and the lender.
“When authority is given to the managements then you are expected to utilise authority effectively and in the right manner and therefore question for management is if they were found lacking, on the face of it seems they were,” said Mr Jaitley.
He added that it is incumbent upon the state to chase those who cheat the banking system.
Meanwhile, Income Tax Department searched 20 premises of tainted Gitanjali Group’s related 13 companies, including those of Mehul Choksi. Searches were done in Mumbai, Pune, Surat, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
UNI ADP SHK 2021