The Delhi High Court Wednesday asked SBI to preserve status quo with regard to accounts of Anil Ambani’s firms — RCom, Reliance Telecom and Reliance Infratel, which have been declared by the bank as fraud accounts.
Justice Prateek Jalan passed the order on a plea by erstwhile directors of the 3 organizations difficult a 2016 circular of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) relating to declaration of accounts as fraud by banks.
According to the plea, the circular permits banks to declare an account as fraud devoid of providing any prior notice or communication to the account holder against the principles of all-natural justice.
Their lawyers told the court that a number of related petitions against the circular have been filed due to the fact 2019 and the petitioners in these matters have been protected by the higher court.
In view of the orders passed earlier by the higher court in related matters, Justice Jalan directed State Bank of India to “maintain status quo till next date of hearing” with regard to the accounts of the 3 organizations.
The court additional stated that the respondents, like RBI and the 3 organizations, had been at liberty to file their replies to the petition by January 11 and listed the matter for hearing on January 13.
The court additional stated that SBI and RBI had been at liberty to take any actions in the nature of an investigation or filing of complaint proceedings against the erstwhile directors and the 3 organizations independent of the impugned action of declaring the accounts of the 3 organizations as fraud accounts.