Submitting that people are heavily dependent upon their deposited money in the light of COVID-19 battered economy, an application was moved on Saturday in the Delhi High Court seeking directions to include all financial emergencies arising out of the necessity from education, marriage and other genuine financial needs as grounds for depositors to withdraw their money from the troubled Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank.
The application, which is likely to come up for hearing before the High Court on November 10, sought directions to provide adequate money in all types of emergencies and for steps to build confidence measures in common depositors to prevent the unfortunate death of depositors on account of being unable to get their money in a time of distress.
The interim application was moved on a pending petition, which was earlier filed by Bejon Kumar Misra, challenging the withdrawal limit in the bank.
The application, filed through advocate Shashank Deo Sudhi, sought directions to the PMC Bank, Reserve Bank of India, and others to set up a court-monitored Special Investigation Team (SIT) for transparent investigation in a time-bound manner.
It claimed that the investigation is being dragged, which is resulting in a situation of complete helplessness and uncertainty towards the hard-earned money of innocent depositors.
Claiming that more than 60 people have lost their lives under the stressful financial circumstances in the PMC matter, the application also sought directions to appropriately compensate the families of deceased depositors who have lost their lives under the stressful financial situation including directions of releasing the total deposited amount to those families immediately without any further delay.
Earlier, the Delhi High Court had directed the RBI, PMC Bank and others to consider the needs of the depositors during the coronavirus-induced lockdown.
"The innocent depositors are reeling under severe financial crisis, which can be reflective from the affidavit filed by the respondents where only 13 depositors were found eligible for withdrawal of more than Rs 1 lakh and the remaining application for additional withdrawal of money from the moratorium limit was rejected," the application said.
"Thus there is an urgent need to extend categories of emergencies when it will arise to the families of the depositors of PMC Bank as the depositors are having no source of income except their deposited amount in the PMC Bank," it added.
In September last year, the RBI had capped the withdrawal limit and restricted the activities of the PMC Bank after an alleged fraud of Rs 4,355 crore came to light. The Enforcement Directorate had later seized and identified movable and immovable assets worth more than Rs 3,830 crore owned by HDIL in connection with the case.
( With inputs from ANI )
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