Naresh Goyal and his wife Anita Goyal, the original promoters of Jet Airways, have moved court, challenging a decision by the country’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) to club them with the airline they founded in the list of ‘fraud accounts’.
While the Goyals were neither guarantors nor direct borrowers, including them in the ‘fraud’ list could trigger criminal proceedings and put them under the lens of government investigative agencies.
The Goyals have filed separate writ petitions before the Bombay High Court on the grounds that they were neither served show-cause notice nor heard by the bank. The law firm Naik Naik & Co is representing the Goyals.
The Goyals have filed separate writ petitions before the Bombay High Court on the grounds that they were neither served show-cause notice nor heard by the bank. The law firm Naik Naik & Co is representing the Goyals.
The matter is expected to come up for hearing this week.
SBI has the largest exposure to Jet Airways which now has a new set of investors whose resolution plan for the debt-laden airline was approved by the bankruptcy court last year.
The legal tussle with SBI is brewing at a point when some banks, under a separate proceeding, are preparing to take a final call on classifying the Goyals as ‘wilful defaulters’. According to Reserve Bank of India’s master directions on classification and reporting of frauds, “…the penal provisions as applicable to wilful defaulters would apply to the fraudulent borrower including the promoter director(s) and other whole-time directors of the company insofar as raising of funds from the banking system or from the capital markets by companies with which they are associated is concerned, etc.”
