High Court asked Center, RBI to respond to appeal asking PMC Bank depositors to release Rs 5 lakh
Delhi:
The Delhi High Court today asked the Center and the RBI to respond to an appeal demanding the release of up to Rs 5 lakh to depositors at Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank Ltd to help them resolve health issues during widespread COVID. -19 pandemic.
A bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan issued an opinion to the Ministry of Finance, Reserve Bank of India and PMC Bank to seek their position on the rights activist’s request of consumers Bejon Kumar Misra.
The court asked them to file responses before the next court date, August 19.
Mr Misra, in the application filed through attorney Shashank Deo Sudhi, said that the court, on an earlier court date, asked applicants to make representation to the Center, RBI or PMC Bank regarding their financial difficulties and their request to withdraw money.
The request indicated that despite such a declaration, no action has been taken to date to help depositors to withdraw money in accordance with their requirement from PMC Bank.
He said if the moratorium on withdrawals was extended until December 2020, more than 35 depositors at the bank would have ended their lives due to financial constraints.
The app said that it does not appear to be running out of funds with the bank, as over Rs 8 crore is spent on maintaining its branches, including paying staff salaries, but depositors even have to hard to withdraw their own money.
He asserted that elderly depositors are “completely crippled” in terms of financial liquidity to purchase utilities and essential medicines.
He argued that the bank does not even release money equivalent to a guaranteed amount of Rs 5 lakh to help depositors in the event of a health crisis.
The request called for an instruction to be issued to the Center, RBI and PMC Bank to urgently decide on the depositors’ request to withdraw their money.
He also called for the lifting of “procedural restrictions” on the withdrawal of the insured amount of Rs 5 lakh by depositors and also to remove the processing time for the release of money.
On May 28, the court asked the Center, the RBI and the PMC Bank to assess the difficulties faced by depositors during withdrawals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It said that upon receipt of any representation from an individual or group of applicants in this regard, “a decision will be taken by the relevant responding authority within four weeks.”
Mr. Misra claimed that this bench directive was not respected.
The request was filed in Mr Misra’s petition requesting instructions from the RBI to ease the moratorium on withdrawing deposited money from PMC Bank depositors during the coronavirus pandemic.
PMC Bank has been placed under restrictions by the RBI following the discovery of a Rs 4,355 crore scam.
The main motion was due to be heard on April 21, but due to the foreclosure and limited functioning of the High Court, it was adjourned to June and then to August 19, 2020.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
