17.09.2026 SL No.4 Court No.12 (gc) FMA 480 of 2026 CAN 1 of 2026 Indian Overseas Bank Vs. Hemant Kanoria & Anr. Mr. Dhruv Dewan, Mr. Deepanjan Dutta Roy, Ms. Arushi Chandra, Ms. Sanjana Jha, Ms. Niranjana Paudian …for the Appellant. Mr. Ratnanko Banerji, Sr. Adv., Mr. Jishnu Chowdhury, Sr. Adv., Mr. Deepan Kumar Sarkar, Mr. Soumalya Ganguli, Mr. Naman Chowdhury, Mr. Shubrojyoti Mookherjee, Mr. Samriddha Sen, Mr. Deep Basak …for the Respondents. 1. Affidavit-of-service filed in Court today is taken on record. 2. The appeal arises out of a judgment and order dated February 10, 2026 passed by a learned Single in WPA 6872 of 2025. By the order impugned, the learned Judge came to the following conclusion:- “16. It is the specific case of the petitioners that the entire documents of the Forensic Audit Report, are not supplied to the petitioners. 17. Considering the above, this Court finds that the petitioners have specified the documents which the petitioners are required to give proper reply to the show cause notices but without any reasons and 2 without considering the request of the petitioners, the respondent has passed the impugned orders dated 15th January, 2026, during the pendency of the present writ application, thus the impugned orders are set aside and quashed. 18. The respondent is directed to supply the documents as mentioned in paragraph 14 above within two weeks from date and if the documents are voluminous, the respondent shall allow the petitioners to inspect the documents and the petitioners shall complete the inspection of the documents within a period two weeks. 19. On receipt of the documents or on completion of inspection of documents, the petitioners shall have the liberty to file their reply to the show cause notices within two weeks thereafter. 20. On receipt of supplementary reply to the show case notices, if any, the respondent shall pass necessary order within two weeks thereafter.” 3. Mr. Dewan, learned Advocate for the appellant submits that His Lordship had proceeded on the basis that the writ petitioners had asked for certain documents before filing the reply to the show cause notice, but those were not supplied. Thus, the direction to supply all the documents mentioned under paragraph 14 of the said order was perverse. Mr. Dewan further submits that His Lordship erred in coming to a conclusion that it was an admission 3 on the part of Mr. Dewan that the documents mentioned under paragraph 14 of the order dated February 10, 2026 had been requested. In support of such contention, Mr. Dewan takes us through the documents annexed to the application for stay. 4. It is true that the writ petitioners were issued with the show cause notice by the bank and, instead of asking for any documents or for any opportunity to file a reply upon supply of those documents, the writ petitioners approached the writ court straight away. 5. Mr. Banerji, learned Senior Advocate for the writ petitioner submits that the show cause notice was issued without supplying documents, hence, there was nothing wrong in approaching the writ court prior to filing the reply to the same. We are of the opinion that the order impugned cannot be sustained. The learned Judge did not appreciate the facts correctly. However, we find from the language used in the show cause notice that the authority had decided to mark the loan account as fraud. Although, the proceeding had been initiated with the issuance of the show cause notice dated February 28, 2025, the show cause notice persuades us to hold that the same was issued with a closed mind. The relevant portion is quoted below:- 4 “After due examination of the conduct of the account and utilization of credit facilities, the Bank is prima facie satisfied that there are indications of fraud in the account, which have been investigated and the loan account has been marked as Fraud Account for the follow reasons: …….” 6. Under such circumstances, the show cause notice cannot be sustained in law and, hence, the same is set aside. 7. The bank will be at liberty to issue a show cause notice in accordance with law. 8. The writ petitioner will be entitled to file a reply to the show cause notice and also pray for inspection and/or copies of relevant documents, which are necessary for adjudication of the issue. If the documents are voluminous, the bank will be liable to provide inspection of those documents. 9. Upon receipt of the documents and upon taking inspection of the voluminous documents, if the writ petitioner needs to file an additional reply, the writ petitioners will be at liberty to do so. 10. The order impugned is set aside. 11. Accordingly, the appeal and the connected application are disposed of. 12. However, there shall be no order as to costs. 5 13. Urgent Photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be supplied to the parties on usual undertaking. (Shampa Sarkar, J.) (Arjun Ray Mukherjee, J.)