Depositors sue CBK over Sh1B owed by Imperial Bank

Two depositors of the collapsed Imperial Bank have today (Tuesday) moved to court seeking orders to have the Central Bank of Kenya and Imperial Bank give them back Sh1 billion which they deposited in their joint account before the bank went under receivership.

Mombasa based businessman Ashok Doshi and his wife Amit Doshi further want the court to suspend payment for all other depositors who had their money in the bank.

In a notice of motion filled before the Mombasa High Court by lawyer Francis Kadima, the two said that they had deposited USD 8,715,000 as at the date of receivership.

They claim that the reason CBK put Imperial bank under receivership was not due to insolvency of the bank, but a discovery of fraudulent schemes being described by the CBK as a parallel bank that had existed over a period of time.

The plaintiffs said they have learnt of a plan to compensate other depositors using their money, saying that this is an illegal breach of the law and ought to be halted.

In addition, the plaintiffs claim that the deposits held by Imperial Bank at the time it was put under receivership were sufficient to pay all depositors.

According to Kadima, his clients are currently facing financial crisis and health problems due to the action taken by CBK.

In October last year, The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) placed Imperial Bank Limited under receivership over what it termed as unsound and unsafe business conditions.

In December, the Central Bank appointed the Kenya Commercial Bank and Diamond Trust Bank to pay depositors up to Sh1 million of their money held in the bank.

So far an estimated 39,860 depositors have been paid an amount totaling to Sh6.8 billion.

Imperial Bank Limited was founded in 1992 and has operations in Kenya and Uganda.