ATIBIR INDUSTRIES COMPANY LIMITED Vs. INDIAN BANK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner no. 1 is a borrower-Company and the other petitioners are its Directors/guarantors. In the present writ petition, the petitioners have challenged a Show-cause Notice dated March 1, 2024 issued by the respondent-Authorities for declaring the petitioners as wilful defaulters in terms of the Master Circular on Wilful Defaulters issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on July 1, 2015.

(2.) Learned senior counsel for the petitioners submits that the respondent, after having failed in numerous attempts to vex the petitioners on the self-same alleged default, have issued the impugned Show-cause Notice.

(3.) The premise of the Show-cause Notice is a purported classification of the account of the petitioner no. 1 as a Non Performing Asset (NPA) with effect from December 27, 2020. However, in a writ petition preferred against such classification, bearing WPO No. 1440 of 2023, this Court restrained the respondent by an order of injunction from proceeding on the premise of, or giving effect to, the impugned proposal for sale of NPAs on the premise that the classification of the petitioner no. 1's account as NPA was patently de hors the relevant RBI Circulars issued during the Covid-19 pandemic.