The Supreme Court will hear tomorrow an urgent plea  seeking 100 per cent insurance protection for the deposits of over 15 lakh customers of whose money is blocked in the scam-hit PMC Bank.

The Punjab & Maharashtra Co-operative Bank has been put under restrictions by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) following the discovery of a Rs 4,355-crore scam. After restricting withdrawals to Rs 1000 a day two weeks ago, the Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday allowed upto rs 40,000 over a specified period. Two account holders have already died of heart attacks while another is suspected to have committed suicide. The matter was mentioned for urgent listing before a bench of Justices NV Ramana, R Subhash Reddy and BR Gavai which said it would consider listing of the plea.

The petition has sought a direction for issuance of “exhaustive and comprehensive guideline” to safeguard the banking and co-operative deposits in the eventuality of emergency financial crisis where citizens are financially stranded by the acts of a few “unscrupulous persons”.

The plea, filed by Delhi-based Bejon Kumar Misra, said the Centre and RBI should be directed to ensure complete insulation and insurance of the hard-earned deposited money of people in various co-operative banks, including nationalised banks, by enacting an appropriate measure of 100 per cent insurance coverage towards the deposited amount.

It said that a high-powered committee should be constituted to look into the complete affairs of working and their operation in all co-operative banks in order to have a robust and transparent mechanism which can inspire confidence of common public in co-operative banks.

The petition has also sought quashing of the RBI notifications restricting the limit of withdrawal of deposited amount in PMC Bank.

–India Legal Bureau