Subramanian Swamy is famous for not just being a senior leader at the Bhartiya Janata Party, he is also known for filing several PILs in several matters. The latest to join this long list of PILs is the one filed regarding the illegalities committed by RBI officials.
Matter of Contention
There have been numerous scams and banking frauds committed in the country. Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya are just two names in a plethora of such incidents. Bank frauds committed are still increasing, but Reserve Bank of India (RBI) still has clean hands. This was questioned in the PIL. Despite many such incidents, none of the RBI officials was brought into question, rather bank officials were questioned. RBI being the holder of power in matters of the monitoring, regulation, supervision of all the banks in the country is not scrutinised. The PIL urges the Supreme Court the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or any similar organisation to probe the activities and workings of the RBI.
Arguments
The PIL stated that
“no officer of RBI has ever been held accountable for any dereliction of duty in case of any fraud reported by any bank. This is in sharp contrast to the number of frauds exploding in the banking sector in India aggregating to in excess of over Rs 3 lakh crore (Rs three trillion)” Swamy, through his PIL further noted that “the scheme of the Banking Regulation Act makes the Reserve Bank of India the alter ego of Bank Management, more so in case of public sector banks. Yet, in none of the high-profile banking scams the Central Bureau of Investigation investigating these scams has not even sought to examine at a cursory level, the role of officials of RBI.”
Swamy also stated that without the active participation or knowledge of any RBI officials scams such as the Kingfisher, Punjab National Bank (Nirav Modi), Yes Bank, First Leasing etc could not be pulled off.
The RTI Application
An RTI was filed with RBI on three counts:
- The list of cases and banks involved in frauds aggregating to Rs 100 crore or more and entered in the RBI Central Fraud Registry from January 1, 2015, till date.
- The list of cases referred to CBI for frauds amount of Rs. 100 Crore or more by the respective banks from 01.01.2015 till date.
- The details of the persons against whom such action has been initiated by the RBI in respect of frauds aggregating to Rs 100 crore or more in each case from 01.01.2015 till date the cases and bank frauds that have been registered
The response that was received from RTI to the RTI was deemed “unsatisfactory” according to the PIL.
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