Petitions filed in SC against RBI Governor and others for contempt of court

A number of petitions have been filed before the Supreme Court seeking contempt of court proceedings against Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das, and others for allegedly and willfully violating the apex court's order of September 3, 2020 on the loan moratorium case.

The apex court had passed the order on the loan moratorium case in September last year and said those accounts that have not been declared non-performing assets (NPAs) as on August 31, 2020, cannot be declared as such until further notice. This order was passed in the favour of all borrowers' accounts to grant them relief from financial stress during Covid-19.

Gorakh Pandurang Nawade, Suryakant Prabhakar Pawar, Pritam Sengupta, and Shanti Jewellers have filed the petition through lawyer, Vishal Tiwari and Advocate-on-Record (AoR) Abhigya Kushwah.

The petitioners claimed that the respondent, RBI, and others, allegedly had declared the account of the petitioners as NPA and thus violated the stay order of the Supreme Court. Thereby, RBI had committed contempt of court, and the Supreme Court should initiate the contempt of court proceedings against the RBI.

They told that the court's order was flouted by many banks and the borrowers suffered a lot. They also asked for compensation from the contemnors for the damage caused to them. They sought a direction from the court that the respondents should grant a grace period of 90 days to the them before declaring their account, NPA.


Source: Hindustan Times
Written by Siddhant Sharma