The bank wants the court to clarify whether the judgment will apply prospectively so that it does not impact past decisions and also providing relevant extracts of the forensic audit report would meet the ends of justice.
The petition filed by the SBI said the bank is not seeking review of the judgment, but a clarification is required since “there is an apprehension of the judgment being misconstrued and misapplied”.
The bank said there is “apprehension that the defaulter borrowers may raise the question of personal hearing and may try to delay the adjudication in absence of specific time limit stipulated’. “They may now insist on (a) complete copy of the forensic auditor report, instead of relevant extracts,” said the plea.
The SBI submitted that “handing over the complete forensic auditor report would hamper the investigation by law enforcement agencies as it would result in forewarning the perpetrators by way of disclosure of confidential/critical information”.
“The disclosure of the entire material against the borrower, at this stage, would give an opportunity to the borrower to delay the investigation, destroy the evidence and abscond the country. This is more so since the forensic report which is (the) basis of the decision making is prepared based upon the documents supplied by the borrower themselves and in the process of forensic audit the borrowers’/representative do participate. Hence supplying relevant extract of the forensic auditor report would meet the ends of justice,” said the plea.
The judgment is likely to be misconstrued and a spate of litigation is apprehended on this ground by “those defaulters, whose default has substantially contributed to the weakening of the financial position of the banks, thereby affecting the economy of the nation”, it said.Rejecting the appeals filed by both the RBI and the SBI-led consortium of lenders, the apex court had on March 27 asked lenders to include principles of natural justice into the RBI’s July 2016 ‘Master Direction on Frauds – Classification and Reporting by Commercial banks and select FIs’ so as to afford an opportunity to the affected party or person to present their case.
