The Reserve Bank of India has penalized 12 banks for flouting banking norms while doing business with Deccan Chronicle Holdings. The erring banks include ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank as the regulator has found irregularities in their giving loans to Deccan Chronicle and in the company’s current accounts with these banks. RBI said in a statement that some of the violations were substantiated and warranted imposition of monetary penalty. Accordingly, the central bank has imposed a total of Rs 1.5 crore fine on these banks. While it asked ICICI Bank to pay Rs 40 lakh, the highest fine, Axis Bank and IDBI Bank will have to pay Rs 15 lakh each. Andhra Bank, Canara Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and four others lenders will have to pay Rs 10 lakh each. RBI said it had carried out a scrutiny of the loan and current accounts of Deccan Chronicle Holdings, in certain branches of these 12 banks in late 2013 and based on the findings of the scrutiny, it had issued show cause notices to these banks in March 2014. The other banks in the list of offenders are Corporation Bank, IndusInd Bank, RBL Bank, State Bank of Hyderabad and Yes Bank.
