The Delhi high court on Wednesday directed the State Bank of India (SBI) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to maintain status quo concerning the accounts of Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom), Reliance Telecom and Reliance Infratel.
A petition by RCom’s former director Punit Garg has challenged certain vires (powers) of RBI circular 2016 on the classification of the accounts as fraud.
The petitioner has argued that the circular violates the principles of natural justice as it does not grant the affected parties any opportunity to be heard.
In view of the orders passed earlier by the high court in similar matters, Justice Prateek Jalan directed SBI to “maintain status quo till next date of hearing” with regard to the accounts of the three companies.
The high court, however, granted SBI the liberty to take any step in the nature of an investigation or to file any complaint proceedings independent of the order declaring the accounts as “fraud accounts”.
The court, while issuing notice on the petition, sought response from the parties, and listed the matter for hearing on 13 January.
Press Trust of India contributed to this story.
