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Journalism of Courage
MUMBAI, FEB 25: In a significant judgement, Special Court judge, Justice S N Variava — hearing the securities scam cases — has ruled that State Bank of Saurastra (SBS) should pay Rs 197 crore to National Housing Bank (NHB) within three weeks.
While disposing a four-year old case on Wednesday, Variava has asked SBC to pay 19 per cent interest from January 3rd 1992 onwards when the trasaction took place. Top NHB officials said with the accumulated interest, SBS will have to pay Rs 197 crore till January 3 this year and five lakh per day thereafter as interest.
The case was decided on a similar line when ANZ had lost a Rs 520 crore appeal to NHB in Justice Variava’s court. The SBS has eight weeks to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The judgement delivered yesterday adds that State Bank of Saurastra will have to cough up Rs 5 lakh as daily interest to NHB beginning January 5 this year. NHB is also fighting an another case against the State Bank of India for an amount of Rs 707 crore.
ANZ has alreadyappealed to the Supreme Court against the special court verdict and even SBS is expected to follow suit. It may be recalled that while the RBI has forced ANZ and SBI to pay to the NHB for similarly crediting cheques to the securities scam accused Harshad Mehta’s account. During these disputed transactions in 1992, the NHB was headed by M J Pherwani who passed away before the initial arbitration commenced.
