"Reject Wrongdoing" HDFC Bank's Official Statement After Alleged Extra Payment of ₹45 Crore MSRDC

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]and shares of HDFC Bank remained under pressure after reports raised concerns over the bank's governance practices, but the bank in response to NDTV Profit has rejected any wrongdoing. In fact, my colleague Piyush gets us the full account of the development. Piyush, tell us.

[00:00:19]Right, HDFC Bank in a statement to NDTV Profit said that in response to the Indian Express report, they have said that the bank maintains robust internal oversight. There are set processes. All the any investigation that is being done is done through a process, already laid out process, and they take corrective actions in cases necessary.

[00:00:42]The bank has rejected assumptions of any wrongdoing by any of its executives.

[00:00:48]Now, this comes on the back of HDFC Bank has seen a slew of negative developments over the last couple of months ever since its former chairman, Mr. Atanu Chakraborty, resigned citing certain differences with the business practices of the bank and his own policies. Now, the Express report had said that HDFC Bank provided MSRDC savings account, which typically the rate is at 3.5%, but they had they were promised 6.1%, and to fill that upwards of 2.5% interest rate, they routed this additional 45 crore payment to MSRDC via via their marketing budget. Now, sources in the banking industry say that this is sort of a common practice that some of the lenders do, but in HDFC Bank's case, the quantum is slightly higher, and hence this needs highlighting, and also the fact that the board was aware of such practices and did not really take corrective actions immediately. This is something which has resulted in HDFC Bank stock, you know, reacting adversely. And over the last couple of months, the banks share price actually has risen quite sharply you know giving pain to both retail and institutional investors.

[00:02:06]All right, so biggest dragger there HDFC Bank on those news reports. Now in a landmark ruling the Supreme Court has upheld the government's decision to impose 28% GST on online gaming delivering a major setback to the industry in the massive 2.5 lakh crore rupees tax dispute. Now the court calls it a valid imposition of tax meaning that GST can be levied on the full value of player deposits and not just on the platforms revenue or commission earnings. In fact, my colleague Nimit joins in with all the details on the court observations and what the order means. Nimit, tell us. Yes, so the Supreme Court has upheld the 28% tax GST imposition that the government put out last year against all these gaming companies. Now this has been a dispute that's been ongoing for about 9 years now since 2017 notices have been issued and till date these notices pile up to about 2.5 lakh crore.

[00:03:09]Most of these numbers outweigh even the market caps of a lot of these gaming companies which say that they will not be able to survive and now that likely is going to become the case because the Supreme Court has upheld the GST application by the government to 28% and the important part is what is this 28% upheld on? On the platform fee or on the revenue? The companies argued that they should be only levied on the revenue that they generate because that is what they're making and that is what they should be taxed on.

[00:03:41]But the the Supreme Court upheld the center's argument here that it should be levied on 100% of the fee that is or the amount put in by the participant on the platform. Now, this was the big point of contention. The second big point of contention was about when this tax notice should apply from because these tax notices the law the 28% law change was first proposed only in 2023. Now, because of this they said that these claims that go all the way back to 2017 should not apply because that's retrospective application of law, which is generally not allowed. The Supreme Court has said here that this law in 2023 was only clarificatory in nature.

[00:04:22]Means it was not a new law, it merely clarified the position that that this will be payable 28% will be payable on the entire amount. So, the notices from 2017 onwards were upheld here. Now, a few of the big companies here that will be affected are Delta Corp, which has a 33,000 crore 33 lakh crore I apologize claim there. And these other companies Dream 11 for example, Games 24, Nazara Tech, Games Craft, MPL, WinZO have all been appealing in the Supreme Court and this is all they've all been turned down here today in one complete judgment. The lastly I'd like to say that the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu bans on online gaming were also upheld in a separate point made by the court. Yeah.