The petitioner is entitled to recover accrued interest on FDRs, as the Banking Ombudsman misapplied legal provisions regarding res-judicata and jurisdiction.

Judgment

Mr. Vinod S. Bhardwaj, J.

This order shall dispose of two writ petitions bearing No.CWP19717-2018 and CWP-19726-2018 as counsel for the parties agree that the questions of law that arise for determination in these two petitions are identical. Facts are however extracted from CWP-19726-2018 titled as APL Industries Vs. Banking Ombudsman, Reserve Bank of India and others.

2. Challenge in the said petition is to the impugned order dated 19.09.2017 (Annexure P-1) passed by respondent No.1-Banking Ombudsman with a further prayer that the respondent Bank be directed to pay the interest accrued on the FDR lying with them since February 1996 to the petitioner herein without any further delay.

3. Briefly summarized, the facts of the present case are that the petitioner company had floated upon a Public Issue in the year 1996 and had appointed M/s Fintech Compu Systems Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi as Registrar to the Issue and the Punjab National Bank, Branch Office, Sansad Marg, New Delhi was appointed as the post issue lead Manager to issue prospectus and receive applications for its IPO. The said Registrar and the Banker as the post issue lead Manager were responsible for the complaints, processing of the forms including allotment of shares and refunding of the application money to the investors.

4. As per the SEBI guidelines, the original record had to be maintained by the Registrar to the Issue and the petitioner company had no role after the appointment of the Registrar had been made. All the record pertaining to the Issue had to be maintained by the Registrar and intimation qua all developments that took place therein had to be submitted to the SEBI by the Registrar. The said Public Issue was initially over-subscribed by almost 1.71 times as on the date of closure i.e. 08.03.1996, however, on account of certain withdrawals by the subscribers, the subscription fell to 94% of the total Public Issue after taking into account the rejections and withdrawals. In accordance with the regulations of the SEBI, the Chairman directed the petitioner company to refund the money vide order dated 22.05.1998 as the Public Issue was under subscribed. Aggrieved thereof, the petitioner company preferred an appeal before the S.A.T. which set aside the order of the SEBI vide its order dated 18.10.2000 and permitted the petitioner company to go ahead with the Public Issue. The said order of the S.A.T. was challenged before the Delhi High Court by way of Writ Petition (C) No.1261 of 2002 (which was initially filed before the Bombay High Court and later on the same was transferred to the Delhi High Court). The Delhi High Court passed an interim order restraining release of the money to the petitioner by the banks. Eventually, vide judgment dated 14.01.2013, the writ petition preferred by the SEBI was allowed and the order passed by the S.A.T. was set aside. Refund of the subscription money alongwith interest at the rate of 15% was thus directed. A dispute thus arose with respect to the award of interest and a Writ Petition (C) No.8731 of 2014 was filed before Delhi High Court raising a challenge to the communication dated 17.11.2014 sent by the Securities Exchange Board of India calling upon the petitioner to pay the principal interest to the share-subscribers who had applied for the same, in terms of the order dated 14.01.2013 passed by the Delhi High Court in Writ Petition (C) No.1261 of 2002. The second relief sought for in the said petition was for issuance of directions to respondent No.1-SEBI to in turn direct the respondent Banks to expedite refund of the application moneys with interest to the share subscribers. The abovesaid writ petition was decided vide judgment dated 17.10.2016, whereby the Delhi High Court directed the respondent Banks to calculate the interest that would have accrued on the amounts received by them from each of the share subscribers and file an affidavit with such computation reflecting column wise, the names of the applican