Bombay High Court defers Kotak Mahindra Bank vs RBI matter to March 12

In the matter between Kotak Mahindra Bank and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on dilution of shareholding held by promoter Uday Kotak, the division Bench of the Bombay High Court (HC) deferred the matter till March 12.

The counsel representing the RBI sought more time from the court to file the affidavit in reply to the writ petition filed by the private lender in the HC. The counsel from the bank’s side conceded to the request.

In the previous hearing, the court had not allowed interim relief for Kotak Mahindra Bank and observed that the RBI was a responsible regulator and it would leave it to the central bank’s wisdom to further deliberate on whether the mandated norms were being met by the lender.

In December 2018, Kotak Mahindra Bank had moved a writ petition in the Bombay HC against the RBI after the central bank did not accept the reduction of promoter shareholding through an issue of preference shares.

In August, the lender had issued perpetual non-convertible preference shares, which it said would trim promoters’ shareholding from 30.3 per cent to 19.7 per cent.

The bank’s shares ended 1.25 per cent higher at Rs 1,220.10 on the BSE in Thursday’s trading.
 

Disclosure: Entities controlled by the Kotak family have a significant shareholding in Business Standard