The Hindu: Tirupur: Sunday,
August 28, 2016.
Knitwear
exporters who are waging a legal battle against banks in the alleged derivates
scam have moved contempt petition in Supreme Court against Central Public
Information Officer of Reserve Bank of India for withholding information sought
under RTI Act.
The contempt
petition was moved by Raja Shanmugam, the president of Forex Derivatives
Consumer Forum (FDCF) formed of aggrieved exporters who sustained more than Rs.
300 crore loss after purchasing ‘exotic forex derivatives products’ extended by
banks, as the RBI did not disclose information pertaining to bank-wise loses
even after the recent Supreme Court order.
The Supreme
Court, in December, had upheld the Central Information Commissioner’s order
asking the RBI to provide information sought by the Tirupur exporters and
further the apex stated that RBI could not withhold any information asked by
the exporters regarding the derivatives scam. Encouraged by the apex court
verdict, FDCF’s economic advisor S. Dhananjayan had sought afresh some other
key details regarding the alleged scam under RTI, a few months back.
It included
copies of show-cause notices issued by RBI to 19 banks for selling ‘unsuitable
derivative products’ that led to levy of penalty on the said banks for
irregularities in the sale of the said ‘exotic forex derivatives’ to hedge
currency fluctuations happened in 2007-08 fiscal and also the extracts of
minutes/file noting of the meeting in which RBI took the decision to penalise
the banks.
However, the
RBI did not give the information by stating in the reply to the queries that
“disclosure of the requested information could prejudicially affect economic
interests of the State”. “Actually the same contention was the one we
challenged in the earlier petitions which eventually resulted in Central
Information Commissioner ordering disclosure of the information and the
upholding of the same by Supreme Court”, pointed out Mr. Dhananjayan.
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