ANIL KUMAR AGRAWAL Vs. RESERVE BANK OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner has filed this writ petition, inter alia, for a direction to the Reserve Bank of India to take necessary regulatory steps to protect the right of small investors like the petitioner, who had invested their money in banks, which may be later categorized as Non -Banking Financial Company.

(2.) PETITIONER states that on or about 17.11.1993 he had invested about Rs. 18,000/ - in Welfare Savings and Credit Limited, a Company incorporated under the provisions of Companies Act, 1956. The assurances was that after maturity on 5.9.1997, the petitioner would get Rs. 25,000/ -. Petitioner states that after maturity he went to the local Bhagalpur office of the Company, he found that the office was closed and all officers absconding. Enquiries revealed that several persons were similarly duped and lost their money. The petitioner, as such, prayed that under the regulatory provisions under the Reserve Bank of India Act, Reserve Bank of India was obliged to take steps to regulate such companies and save the investors. Mr. Kaushal Kumar Jha, learned counsel for the Reserve Bank of India has stated that the Company aforesaid, being Welfare Savings and Credit Limited, was Company incorporated in the State of West Bengal and had already been black listed by the Reserve Bank of India. He further pointed out that the State of Bihar has enacted the Bihar Protection of Interest of Depositors (in Financial Establishments) Act, 2002 and have framed Rules thereunder, being the 2004 Rules. The petitioner should make his claim, accordingly, before the appropriate authority as several other investors have done.

(3.) IN view of this Court, the petitioner should take steps, as indicated above, for redressal of his grievances. In case of any difficulty, it is open to the petitioner to approach the appropriate authority in the Reserve Bank of India and any guidance in the matter which Reserve Bank of India would oblige to give, especially, keeping in view that petitioner is a small time, small town investors not conversant with technicality of law.