The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on the 4th of February, 2020 moved the Supreme Court and challenged a Bombay High Court order for the sale of a mortgaged property connected to the Rs. 7,000 crores worth Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) scam. And further contended that the order was passed without having heard the banking regulator.
The RBI's petition was mentioned by Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India S A Bodbde and further requested it to grant an urgent hearing. The bench asked the advocate to approach the mentioning Registrar. The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was submitted by the RBI on which the High Court passed an impugned order and RBI was not made a party to it. And further the measures taken in the inclusion of the appointment of an administrator were brought to the court's notice.
On the 15th of January, 2020, the Bombay High court appointed a three member committee that was headed by the retired Judge S Radhakrishnan to sell the encumbered assets of Housing Development Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) to expeditiously have the dues recovered to the crisis of Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative bank scam.
In September 2019, the RBI restricted the activities of the PMC Bank for six months and asked it further to not grant or renew any loans and advances, nor any investments or incur to any liability inclusive of borrowing of the funds and having accepted fresh deposits after an alleged fraud of Rs. 4355 crores had come to the light.
The Central bank had capped the withdrawal of the deposits at Rs. 10,000 but further raised them to Rs. 40,000. The Enforcement Directors had seized the movable and immovable assets worth more than Rs. 3830 crores that were owned by HDIL in the connectivity to the case.
Author - Dyuti Pandya
