Two key personnel of Gitanjali Ltd — its chief compliance officer and its chief financial officer — resigned last week, regulatory filings on Tuesday showed.
While Pankhuri Warange, the chief compliance officer and the company secretary, resigned over concerns about “absence of disclosures” from the company, Chief Financial Officer Chandrakant Karkare resigned due to a recent surgery conducted on his wife.
“The recent event unfolded in the organization requires the company to make disclosures under the Companies Act 2013 and the SEBl (Listing Obligation and Disclosure) Requirements, 2015. 1 have advised the management on the required disclosures to be made,” said Warange in her resignation letter, a copy of which was also forwarded to the stock exchanges.
“There is however no consensus in my opinion on the disclosures to be made and that of the management and in these circumstances, my conscience doesn’t permit me to continue with my position. I have therefore taken a conscious decision of resigning and relinquishing my position as the Company Secretary and Compliance Officer of the Company with immediate effect,” she said in her resignation letter on Tuesday, Feb 13.
She also warned that the “absence of disclosure” will have ramification not just on the company but also on the key managerial personnel.
Two days later, CFO Chandrakant Karkare also put in his papers, but for personal reasons. “Recently, my wife has undergone a major surgery called Hemicolectomy at Lilavati Hospital. The post operation recovery is not up to the expected level. This has resulted in restriction in me carrying the responsibilities as CFO, and will be very difficult for me in future,” he pointed out.
Gitanjali Gems Ltd has been caught up in the $1.77 bln Letter of Credit scam involving Nirav Modi, his uncle Mehul Choksi — chairman of Gitanjali Gems — and certain employees of Punjab National Bank.
Tax enforcement authorities have raided and seized assets as part of their investigations into the scandal, which involved the issue of Letters of Credit by certain mid-level employees of the PNB guaranteeing that the bank will make good any default by Nirav Modi. These letters were used by Modi to get thousands of crores of rupees in loans from other banks such as Allahabad Bank and Axis Bank.