Delhi HC Delhi HC directs SBI, RBI to maintain status quo on accounts of Anil Ambani's 3 companies
New Delhi/UNI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the State Bank of India (SBI) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to maintain status quo in the accounts of three Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group entities--Reliance Communications (RCom), Reliance Telecom (RTL) and Reliance Infratel.
A single-judge Bench of Justice Prateek Jalan, was hearing a petition by RCom’s erstwhile director Punit Garg.
The petitioner challenged the vires of the RBI circular on the classification of the account as 'fraud.'
Senior counsel JJ Bhatt, appearing on behalf of RCom, argued that the circular violates of principles of natural justice without granting the parties any opportunity to be heard.
The bench, in its order, said that the SBI has the liberty to probe, issue show cause notice, and file any complaints against the companies.
The court posted the matter for further hearing on January 13 and directed the banks to file their replies by January 11.
Last week, the bank accounts of RCom), Reliance Infratel and RTL had been classified as 'fraudulent' by SBI, Union Bank of India (UBI) and the Indian Overseas Bank (IOB).
As per reports, the companies' total debt is over Rs 86,188 crore, which is nearly a ten-fold hike than what Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi owed to Indian banks, with debt amounting to Rs 9,000 crore and Rs 7,409.07 crore respectively.
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