Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Monday refused to grant stay on the December 31 deadline to private sector lender Kotak Mahindra Bank for promoter stake dilution. A division bench of justices B P Dharmadhikari and S V Kotwal directed the RBI to file its affidavit by January 17, 2019, on a petition filed by the Kotak Mahindra Bank against the dilution directive. The bank had last week petitioned the high court challenging a letter dated August 13, 2018, of the RBI, directing it to dilute its promoter shareholding to 20 per cent of its paid-up voting equity capital by December 31 this year and to 15 per cent by March 31, 2020.
The bank’s counsel Darius Khambata on Monday argued that the issue of dilution of promoter stakes has been going on since a few years. “In the past, the RBI asked the bank to only dilute promoter shareholding of its paid-up capital. However, the impugned letter sought dilution of paid-up voting equity capital,” Khambata said.
