Page 20 - Banking Finance June 2021

LEGAL UPDATE

Legal

Cases

Interest on loans in months which were not NPA’s as on banking frauds. Data with the agency's
August 31. Anti Phishing Unit received 5226
moratorium: Supreme complaints between April 2019 and
The Court in a day-long hearing had
Court gives Centre, RBI heard arguments on the question of March 2021.
more time to reply interest to be charged on interest and A phishing attack involves sending
the powers of the Centre and the fraudulent communication like texts or
The Supreme Court gave the Centre
NDMA under the Disaster emails that appear to have come from
and the Reserve Bank of India more
time to place their decisions on record Management Act to provide relief on a reputable source. The goal is to steal
sensitive data or to install malware.
regarding the issue of waiver of aspect of loan repayment during Covid "As people were grounded and spent
interest on the suspended EMIs during pandemic. a large part of 2020 in front of the
the moratorium period. The court will On March 27, a circular was issued by screen, cyberscamsters became more
hear the matter next on October 5. the RBI, allowing banks to grant a active," said a senior official with
moratorium to borrowers on payment
A three-judge bench of Justices Ashok Maharashtra Cyber.
of instalments for a period of three
Bhushan, R. Subhash Reddy and M. R. But lawyers believe that the actual
Shah issued the direction while hearing months, which was later extended to
six months, in the wake of the Covid- number of phishing attacks occurring
petitions demanding waiver of interest in the state are far more than those
on the suspended EMIs during 19 pandemic and the subsequent being reported to Maharashtra Cyber's
moratorium period. lockdown. The RBI had clarified that
the interest on these loans for this portal. "The agency's portal
During the hearing, Solicitor General period would be payable. Petitions (reportphishing.in) has not been
Tushar Mehta apologised to the bench were filed challenging the circular to publicized enough," says cyber lawyer
for not submitting the affidavit on the extent of interest being charged as Prashant Mali. "The Anti Phishing Unit
behalf of the government saying that their monthly EMI payment will stand should also make data available on
the government is at a very advanced increased as a result. how many complaints received by
stage in its decision making process. them eventually convert into FIRs. For
The court had last time asked Mehta Banking frauds make for a victim of cyber crime, what matters
to submit an affidavit detailing all the the most is getting his money back and
steps to be taken by Ministry of 50% of phishing cases in the process of law cannot begin
Finance and RBI on the issue. Maharashtra without registration of an FIR," he
added.
The apex court on its previous hearing Half of all phishing complaints reported
on September 3 had directed the banks to the state's nodal cybersecurity A few lawyers have been utilizing a
to not declare those accounts as a non- agency, Maharashtra Cyber, in the provision in the Information
performing assets (NPA) for two past two financial years pertained to Technology (IT) Act to seek monetary

20 | 2021 | JUNE | BANKING FINANCE