{"id":97121,"date":"2024-07-18T14:29:06","date_gmt":"2024-07-18T14:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/18\/delhi-hc-stays-idbi-bank-order-to-classify-former-punj-lloyd-chairman-atul-punjs-account-as-fraud\/"},"modified":"2024-07-18T14:29:06","modified_gmt":"2024-07-18T14:29:06","slug":"delhi-hc-stays-idbi-bank-order-to-classify-former-punj-lloyd-chairman-atul-punjs-account-as-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/18\/delhi-hc-stays-idbi-bank-order-to-classify-former-punj-lloyd-chairman-atul-punjs-account-as-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Delhi HC stays IDBI Bank order to classify former Punj Lloyd chairman Atul Punj\u2019s account as fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/img.etimg.com\/photo\/msid-111841313,imgsize-24538.cms?fit=1200,900&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Delhi HC stays IDBI Bank order to classify former Punj Lloyd chairman Atul Punj\u2019s account as fraud\" title=\"Delhi HC stays IDBI Bank order to classify former Punj Lloyd chairman Atul Punj\u2019s account as fraud\" \/><\/div>\n<div data-brcount=\"17\">The <a data-ga-onclick=\"Inarticle articleshow link click#News#href\" href=\"https:\/\/economictimes.indiatimes.com\/topic\/delhi-high-court\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Delhi High Court<\/a> has stayed an <a data-ga-onclick=\"Inarticle articleshow link click#News#href\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/economictimes.indiatimes.com\/idbi-bank-ltd\/stocks\/companyid-11689.cms\" rel=\"noopener\">IDBI Bank<\/a> order to classify former <a data-ga-onclick=\"Inarticle articleshow link click#News#href\" href=\"https:\/\/economictimes.indiatimes.com\/topic\/punj-lloyd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Punj Lloyd<\/a> chairman and managing director <a data-ga-onclick=\"Inarticle articleshow link click#News#href\" href=\"https:\/\/economictimes.indiatimes.com\/topic\/atul-punj\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Atul Punj<\/a>\u2019s account as fraud in respect of loans\/advances\/financial transactions by the company.<\/p>\n<p><!--\/article_liveblog.cms?msid=105115637&pos=toppotime:1-->Justice Dharmesh Sharma said that the operation of the Bank\u2019s July 5 order for the \u201cdeclaration or classification of the account of the petitioner (Atul) as fraud is concerned, be kept in abeyance till the next date of hearing\u201d on September 17.<\/p>\n<p>However, it gave at liberty to the lender to file a report with the RBI as also with the Central Bureau of Investigation\/Police for initiation of appropriate proceedings against Atul in accordance with law. \u201cThe action may be undertaken without prejudice to the rights and contentions of the parties. If the respondent (IDBI Bank) elects to review their decision in view of the findings recorded hereinabove, this court shall also be at liberty to afford an opportunity of hearing to the petitioner and take appropriate decision in accordance with law,\u201d the single judge bench said.<\/p>\n<p>Atul had challenged the IDBI Bank\u2019s July 5 order to declare his account as fraud in respect of <a data-ga-onclick=\"Inarticle articleshow link click#News#href\" href=\"https:\/\/economictimes.indiatimes.com\/topic\/loans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">loans<\/a> taken by Punj Lloyd. The bank, which have financed the corporate borrower under multiple banking arrangement, had passed the order in exercise of its power as per the RBI&#8217;s Master directions.<\/p>\n<p>Senior counsel Sandeep Sethi, appearing for Atul, argued that the process to declare <a data-ga-onclick=\"Inarticle articleshow link click#News#href\" href=\"https:\/\/economictimes.indiatimes.com\/topic\/banking-transactions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">banking transactions<\/a> or accounts as fraud could only be based on the majority rule of agreement amongst the banks with at least 60% share in the total lending.<\/p>\n<p>However, <a data-ga-onclick=\"Inarticle articleshow link click#News#href\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/economictimes.indiatimes.com\/idbi-bank-ltd\/stocks\/companyid-11689.cms\" rel=\"noopener\">IDBI Bank<\/a> counsel Sidhartha B said that the bank in its individual capacity was not precluded from conducting an independent inquiry and come to a different conclusion than the one reached by other member banks of the consortium.However, the HC noted that according to the <a data-ga-onclick=\"Inarticle articleshow link click#News#href\" href=\"https:\/\/economictimes.indiatimes.com\/topic\/rbi-master-directions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">RBI Master directions<\/a>, an individual bank was entitled to get the accounts of the corporate borrower examined and audited independently, and it can certainly reach a different conclusion with regard to status of the accounts of the corporate borrower and thereby, could \u201cred flag\u201d the same. However, the remedy is only to report the fraud to the RBI within 20 days of detection and also report the matter to the <a data-ga-onclick=\"Inarticle articleshow link click#News#href\" href=\"https:\/\/economictimes.indiatimes.com\/topic\/cbi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CBI<\/a> or the police for criminal action, the order stated.\u201cA careful perusal of the aforesaid RBI directions bring out that the individual bank has no jurisdiction to unilaterally declare the account as \u201cfraud\u201d in the absence of consent accorded by the member banks in the consortium who have given more than 60% of the lending,\u201d the HC said.<\/p>\n<p>Atul had told the HC that in a meeting by all the lenders of Punj Lloyd, a consortium of 29 member banks had found nothing wrong, in which 61.16% of the banks found that \u201cno fraud\u201d was committed by the petitioner and the other promoter directors while 21.09% were yet to take any decision.<br \/><!--\/article_liveblog.cms?msid=105115637&pos=botpotime:2--><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/economictimes.indiatimes.com\/news\/india\/delhi-hc-stays-idbi-bank-order-to-classify-former-punj-lloyd-chairman-atul-punjs-account-as-fraud\/articleshow\/111841313.cms\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Delhi High Court has stayed an IDBI Bank order to classify former Punj Lloyd chairman and managing director Atul Punj\u2019s account as fraud in respect of loans\/advances\/financial transactions by the company. Justice Dharmesh Sharma said that the operation of the Bank\u2019s July 5 order for the \u201cdeclaration or classification of the account of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/img.etimg.com\/photo\/msid-111841313,imgsize-24538.cms","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[602],"tags":[3335,52599,82174,673,82176,8979,2874,65831,2921,2446,41419,6229,82175,34498,44286,7408,25174,5689,82179,82178,47861,82177,16424],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97123,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97121\/revisions\/97123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}