The Supreme Court of India has issued notices to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on a plea filed by BJP member Subramanian Swamy seeking a CBI probe into the alleged role of an RBI official in bank loan fraud cases, reported Live Law.
“Despite playing a key role in allocation of funds to various projects, RBI nominees have not been touched by CBI enquiries from 2000 till today”, Swamy had said.
In the PIL, Subramanian Swamy had pointed out that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) must probe the RBI officials for dereliction and failure to discharge their duties and role of their connivance with the bank loan frauds.
“…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),” the PIL stated.
Swamy stated that even several bank officials’ names have come out in bank fraud cases, but surprisingly, not even a single RBI official has been brought to justice despite RBI retaining the power to monitor, regulate, supervise, audit and direct the functioning of all banking companies in India.
“Put pithily, 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 (PSBs). 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 stated in the PIL.
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