Delhi High Court: In a public interest litigation filed under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution, the Division Bench of Manmohan, ACJ* and Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, J., considered petitioner’s prayer regarding issuance of an exhaustive guidelines to ensure safe keeping of deposits in emergency financial crisis and direction to constitute a High-Powered Committee for looking into the complete affairs of all the co-operative banks, opined that it fell within the domain of policy making by the executive and legislature. Thus, the Court opined that prayers sought in the present petition did not survive for consideration and accordingly disposed of the petition.
Background
In the present case, petitioner filed the present PIL seeking additional directions to RBI for providing 100% insurance to the deposit holders for their money deposited in various Cooperative Banks including nationalized banks by enacting an appropriate policy. Petitioner also sought for an Issuance of an exhaustive and comprehensive guidelines to ensure safe keeping of deposits in case of emergency financial crisis and direction to constitute a High-Powered Committee for looking into the complete affairs of all the co-operative banks.
Petitioner stated that the main reason behind the impropriety in the management of these banks was that the co-operative banks were under dual control of RBI and Registrar of Co-operative Societies. Such dual regulation led to lack of coordination between the regulating entities which in turn provided an escape to the banks to do acts as per their whims and fancies in violation of the rules and regulations. Petitioner further stated that as per the recent notification the depositors PMC Bank will get back the money deposited after a time span of ten years.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court noted the in the affidavit dated 13-03-2024, RBI had placed on record gazette notification dated 25-01-2022 with respect to the scheme of amalgamation of PMC Bank with Unity Bank, and the said scheme was prepared by RBI as per its statutory mandate under Section 45 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 to protect the interest of depositors of PMC Bank. Therefore, the Court opined that the present petition seeking reliefs for the depositors of the PMC Bank did not survive for consideration. Further regarding directions for providing 100% insurance cover for deposit holders, the Court opined that at the time of filing of this petition, the insurance cover was Rs. 1 lakh per account which had since been enhanced by Respondent 9 to Rs. 5 lakhs per bank account with effect from 04-02-2020 with the approval of Government of India.
Additionally, regarding issuance of an exhaustive guidelines to ensure safe keeping of deposits in emergency financial crisis and direction to constitute a High-Powered Committee for looking into the complete affairs of all the co-operative banks, the Court opined that it fell within the domain of policy making by the executive and legislature. Thus, the Court opined that prayers sought in the present petition did not survive for consideration and accordingly disposed of the petition.
[Bejon Kumar Misra v. Union of India, 2024 SCC OnLine Del 2295, decided on 27-03-2024]
*Judgment authored by- Acting Chief Justice Manmohan
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioner: Arun Prakash, Advocate;
For the Respondents: Ripu Daman Bhardwaj, CGSC with Kushagra Kumar and K. Manaswini, Advocates; Aman Singh, Advocate for Sameer Vashisht, ASC (Civil); Jayant Bhushan, Senior Advocate with H.S. Parihar, Kuldeep S. Parihar and Ikshita Parihar, Advocates; Ramesh Babu M.R., Manisha Singh, Nisha Sharma, Tanya Chowdhary and Rohan Srivastava, Advocates.
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