A number of pleas had been filed before the Apex Court seeking its direction for initiation of Contempt of Court proceedings & punishing Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das, & others for allegedly & willfully violating the Supreme Court’s order/directions of September 3, 2020.
The Supreme Court had passed the order on the loan moratorium case in Sept 2020 & said those accounts that have not been declared non-performing assets (NPAs) as on Aug 31, 2020, cannot be declared as such until further notice.
The petitioners — Gorakh Pandurang Nawade, Suryakant Prabhakar Pawar, Pritam Sengupta, & Shanti Jewellers — had filed their respective pleas through counsel, Vishal Tiwari & Advocate-on-Record (AoR) Abhigya Kushwah, before the Supreme Court in connection with loan moratorium case.
The petitioners alleged that the respondent, RBI, & others, allegedly had declared the account of the petitioners as NPA & thus flouted the stay order of the Supreme Court of Sept 3, 2020, & thereby RBI committed contempt of court, & the Supreme Court should initiate the contempt of court proceedings against the RBI.
Tiwari told that the apex court’s order was flouted by many banks & borrowers suffered a lot.
The petitioners also sought a direction from the top court that the contemnors should compensate for the damage caused to the petitioners by their contemptuous act, the petition stated.
They also sought a direction from the Supreme Court that the respondents should grant a grace period of 90 days to the petitioner before declaring its account, NPA, the petition claimed.
The respondents are duty-bound to promulgate the orders of this apex court throughout the country but they deliberately did not do it. The September 3 order was operational on all lending institutions & banks throughout the country & was passed in the favour of all borrowers’ accounts to grant relief from financial stress during COVID-19, the petitioners alleged.
The contemptuous act of the respondents has not only disobeyed the court’s order but has also caused severe irreparable damage & loss to the petitioners (firm), the petitioners claimed.
The contemptuous act of the respondents has shaken the confidence of the public & has degraded the trust of the borrowers. In this pandemic, where all borrowers are passing through the worst scenario that this stay order was operational throughout the nation & was in the public interest, the petitions said.
The stay order was operating as the life-saving drug to the petitioner but the contemptuous act of the respondent has brought a major setback to the firm & its survival has become critical, the petitioners claimed.
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