On March 26, Patiala House Court had issued summons against 11 PNB officials. The Delhi High Court has stayed the trial court proceedings against Punjab National Bank (PNB), its former managing director and CEO Usha Ananthasubramanian and 11 other senior PNB officials in a case relating to the multi-crore fraud involving Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had filed the complaint in the Court of Metropolitan Magistrate, New Delhi, against PNB, its MD and CEO and other officials, including former executive director R S Sangapure and former general manager Rakesh Kumar, for alleged violation of Section 46 of the Banking Regulation Act. The Metropolitan Magistrate had summoned them, including PNB on May 24. However, based on a petition filed by the public sector lender, the high court last week stayed the proceedings of the trial court and listed the next hearing on the matter on July 17. “The counsel for the second respondent (complainant) on being asked was unable to give an explanation as to why a general reference was made in the complaint leading to similar general mention in the summoning order to Section 46 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, without the specific penal clause being indicated,” the Delhi High Court order said. The high court also directed the RBI to file its response within two weeks. “The scond respondent may file the response within two weeks. Rejoinder, if required, be filed within the same period,” the HC said. The Metropolitan Magistrate of the Patiala House Court, on March 26, had issued summons against 11 officials of PNB, for furnishing false statements and misleading the Reserve Bank that ultimately led to a fraud of more than Rs 13,000 crore at the Brady House Branch of PNB in Mumbai. According to the submissions of the Reserve Bank counsel, during information technology inspections of PNB, it was “observed that core banking system (CBS) as not integrated with many critical applications and there was no online integration of SWIFT with CBS”.