Last week, the CBI probed into Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM,) one of India’s top law firms in connection with Nirav Modi, the key accused in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam. Few weeks before the scam surfaced, Modi approached CAM for a few banking related transactions. CAM terminated the account after the news of the PNB scam emerged.
A partner of CAM said, “A search like this threatens client attorney privilege. It is highly unusual for an investigative agency to show up at a reputed lawyer’s office.” The person further added the Bar Council of India should look into the matter.
A Senior CBI Officer said, “We had information that some documents pertaining to the accused companies were lying with the law firm, so we visited the CAM office and collected those documents.” Neither the CBI nor CAM revealed the nature of the documents seized.
A CBI official said they are going through a heap of documents recovered from CAM, Modi and Mehul’s residences, charted accountants, lawyers, PNB and auditors.
The Chief of CAM, Cyril Shroff’s clients include a few of India’s biggest and most powerful businessmen. The clients include Tata Group, State Bank of India (SBI,) Aditya Birla Group, L&T, Infosys and Reliance Industries.
