Bombay HC grants interim relief to Naresh, Anita Goyal from SBI action
India Today
The Bombay High Court has directed SBI to not take any action against Naresh Goyal and his wife, Antia, who were former promoters of Jet Airways. The couple had moved the HC, challenging a decision by SBI to declare their accounts as wilful defaulters.
The Bombay High Court, while granting interim relief to former promoters of Jet Airways, Naresh Goyal and his wife Anita Goyal, directed the State Bank of India (SBI) to not take any action under criminal laws until further orders.
The bench of justices SV Gangapurwala and Madhav Jamdar granted SBI two weeks to file their reply to the pleas filed by the Goyals individually.
Goyals had moved the high court, challenging a decision by the SBI to club their accounts with the airline they founded in the list of 'fraud accounts'. The petition filed by Naik Naik & Co stated that due to a certain ‘wilful default’ by the airline in repaying the credit, SBI had initially declared the airline as a fraud account.
Thereafter, it proceeded to declare Goyals' account as ‘wilful defaulters’ too.
The plea stated that the Goyals had not been heard, or even served with notice or communication from the SBI before the bank went ahead with such a declaration about their account.
Goyals said that Jet had already undergone a successful Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and by virtue of this, Jet no longer had liabilities and if Jet was no longer a fraud account, then its former promoters could not be termed as fraud accounts either.
The plea stated that under criminal law, there was no concept of vicarious liability. In light of this, the promoters could not be compelled to face liability for any earlier conduct of the company.
