PMC Bank Scam: HDIL assets to be sold off

On Wednesday, Bombay High court had passed an order to shift the main accused in the PMC bank to be shifted from jail to their residence in Bandra. The HDIL promoters Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan and his son Sarang R. Wadhawan have been in police custody since October 2019. As per this order, they were to kept at their residence under two jail guards to ensure their cooperation with the committee. However, today Supereme Court has put a stay in this decision. 

A Bench led by Chief Justice Sharad A. Bobde, following an urgent mention by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, froze the operation of the January 15 order of the High Court.

In its judgement High court ruled that three-member committee headed by a retired High Court judge, Justice S. Radhakrishnan, will be set up to evaluate the encumbered assets of HDIL for sale to recover the company's debts to the now defunct Bank. The next hearing is scheduled on April 30 where the retired judge will name the other two committee members and present a status report to the court. 

The committee will first evaluate and sell the HDIL's encumbered properties. In case, there is any shortfall in recovering the dues to PMC Bank, then the personal properties owned by the Wadhawans shall be disposed of.

The PMC bank's dues are being pegged at 4,335 crore and HDIL counsel Vikram Chaudhri informed the court that while the PMC Bank's dues are around Rs 4,355 crore, the encumbered assets of the company alone are worth around Rs 11,000 crore and would be sufficient to repay the bank's outstandings.

The news of the PMC scam first made headlines on 23rd Sep, 2019 when RBI put a cap on the withdrawals. Eearlier the sealing was set at a mere Rs 1,000 per account holder and has now been raised to Rs 50,000 per account holder. The depositors of the bank have been staging protesting and requesting the Finance Minister of the country and the CM of the state to step into the matter and help them. 

Ever since the matter has come to light, over 10 people who had an account in this bank have died, because they were unable to access their own funds.