Demand Transparent Accountability: The Mass RTI Appeal to the DHFL Victims
Demand Transparent Accountability: The Mass RTI Appeal to the DHFL Victims
Posted on 10th August, 2025 (GMT 07:15 hrs)
Authored by Partyless Society⤡
ABSTRACT
This mass RTI appeal urges DHFL victims and their communities to demand transparency regarding the RBI-appointed Committee of Creditors’ (CoC) meetings, voting records, and expenditures during the DHFL insolvency resolution process. Faced with systematic denial of crucial information, this coordinated effort seeks to expose potential manipulation and cronyism that have compromised fair decision-making. By collectively filing RTI requests, the public asserts its right to scrutinize how votes were cast, decisions made, and funds spent—upholding democratic accountability in a process that deeply affects victims and the broader financial system. This appeal highlights transparency as a fundamental democratic right essential to justice and fairness.
In Continuation With
The Right to Information (RTI) Act (2005) was envisioned as a cornerstone of democratic accountability, empowering citizens to demand transparency and hold those in power responsible. However, today it is being systematically undermined within India’s law enforcement and political-administrative structures.
Systemic obfuscation: RTI requests are frequently met with bureaucratic hurdles, evasive replies, or dismissed as “hypothetical,” effectively blocking meaningful access to public records.
Threats to activists: Civil society advocates and RTI users who persist face growing risks of harassment, intimidation, and even fatal attacks.
Expanding legal cover-ups: New laws, such as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act of 2023, widen the scope for withholding information under claims of national security or privacy.
Entrenched elite control: Oligarchic and crony capitalist networks exploit these legal and procedural gaps to avoid scrutiny, aided by close coordination between corporations, politicians, and the state.
The Right to Information Act is in danger VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 25th July, 2024 ©The Times of India)
Under current legal and political arrangements, citizens cannot use the RTI Act to obtain details about entities like the PM CARES Fund or the sources of any political party donations. PM CARES has been declared outside the RTI’s purview on the grounds that it is not a “public authority,” despite being chaired by the Prime Minister, using government infrastructure, and receiving substantial contributions from public sector entities. Similarly, the combination of opaque electoral bonds (now deemed unconstitutional)1 and statutory exemptions ensures that political party funding sources remain hidden from public scrutiny. This deliberate insulation from transparency is not accidental—it reflects a systemic will to hide (erit celare/jugupsa), where financial flows, decision-making processes, and institutional accountability are shielded from democratic oversight. Under the BJP regime, such opacity has become entrenched, reducing public participation to ritual and treating information—a constitutional lifeline of democracy—as a controlled privilege rather than a fundamental right.
In our ongoing struggle to secure justice for lakhs of DHFL victims, we have filed multiple RTI applications—Nos. RBIND/R/E/24/04068, CAGIN/R/E/24/02309, and RBIND/R/E/25/05544—addressed to the Reserve Bank of India, the Comptroller and Auditor General, and other relevant authorities, seeking records of the RBI-appointed Committee of Creditors’ expenditures during the DHFL resolution process. To date, none of these authorities have provided the requested information. This persistent refusal to disclose raises a troubling question: does it not expose a far deeper crisis of accountability and transparency at the heart of our financial and regulatory systems?
Our most recent RTI bearing No. RBIND/R/E/25/05544 has made the following urgent appeal to the Reserve Bank of India:
Sir/Madam,
Pursuant to the provisions of the Right to Information Act, 2005, I hereby request access to the following existing records pertaining to the Committee of Creditors (CoC) appointed by the RBI in the Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd. (DHFL) insolvency case:
a) Minutes of all CoC meetings held from 3 December 2019 to 17 January 2021, including any annexures or attachments.
b) All documents reflecting expenditures incurred in connection with the operation of the RBI-appointed CoC (e.g. administrative costs, legal, consultancy, travel, daily allowance) from 3 December 2019 to 17 January 2021.
Given the structure of the above RTI appeal, we now issue a mass call to action to all DHFL victims—and equally to their friends, relatives, and neighbours—to join in a coordinated wave of RTI applications on this same question, directed to the same authority: the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The text may be adapted to individual preference, but the core content and target must remain unchanged.
Filing an RTI takes only a few minutes, and every submission adds weight to our collective demand for transparency. You can start immediately by clicking on the following link:
Requesting the minutes and voting records of the RBI-appointed Committee of Creditors is crucial to uncovering whether the decision-making during the DHFL Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) was conducted fairly or manipulated to favor certain interests. Serious concerns exist that the voting process may have been steered in a predetermined manner to benefit Piramal Finance, raising questions about the integrity of the CIRP. This suspicion parallels ongoing political allegations by the Hon’ble Leader Of the Opposition regarding electoral malpractice and vote manipulation by the BJP in collusion with the Election Commission of India.
The parallel lies in the apparent systemic bias favouring influential figures—Mr. Ajay Piramal is a secondary kin of Mr. Mukesh Ambani, a prominent tycoon favoured by the political executive. Such connections suggest that the DHFL resolution was not merely a financial restructuring but a seemingly carefully engineered outcome. Moreover, Mr. Piramal’s documented links to controversial issues—such as the Flashnet scam involving Piyush Goyal, electoral bond contributions to the BJP, and donations to PM CARES—underscore the urgent need for rigorous scrutiny and transparency.
In present-day India, widespread allegations of vote tampering, manipulated voter rolls, and a complicit Election Commission undermine the very essence of free and fair elections. When the electoral process is compromised by hidden manipulations and lack of transparency, voting becomes a hollow ritual rather than a true expression of the people’s will. This erosion of trust turns democracy into a mockery—where outcomes are engineered, not earned, and citizens’ voices are silenced behind a façade of legitimacy.
This questionable reality extends beyond elections to other arenas of decision-making as well. Take, for example, the RBI-appointed Committee of Creditors (CoC) responsible for the DHFL Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP). It is claimed that Piramal’s resolution plan received a majority vote—often cited as more than 90% approval. But what does this figure really mean? Who decides it? Are the victims, who collectively hold over 65% of the voting power as fixed deposit and NCD holders, adequately informed and allowed meaningful participation? According to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) order dated 19 May 2021 (Point 87), “…the proposal is not made available to FD, NCD holders who constitute more than 65% of vote share of members of CoC.”
Is this democratic decision-making, or is it predetermined cronyism? Such opaque and exclusionary practices mirror the larger electoral manipulation plaguing the country and call into question the legitimacy of voting as a genuine expression of popular will.
By demanding the RBI-appointed CoC’s meeting minutes and voting records, we seek to uphold the principles of fairness and accountability, ensuring powerful actors cannot evade oversight under the guise of corporate processes.
Till date, Once in a Blue Moon Academia (OBMA) has filed multiple RTIs addressing a wide range of issues—both directly linked to the DHFL scam and more broadly concerning the contemporary Indian political landscape:
Subject-Matters of OBMA RTIs
- Alleged criminal–corporate–political nexus: Suspected collusion among Dawood Ibrahim, Iqbal Mirchi, RKW Developers, DHFL, and the BJP.
- Ownership and control disputes: Current ownership of DHFL—Piramal Capital & Housing Finance or Piramal Finance—and disputed ownership status during insolvency proceedings.
- Auditing and regulatory oversight: Responsibility for alleged deceptive auditing of DHFL; accountability of RBI and IBBI in the DHFL resolution process.
- Legal and corporate governance: Queries to Department of Legal Affairs and Ministry of Corporate Affairs regarding ownership claims and sub judice status.
- Regulatory classification: Status of DHFL as an NBFC under RBI jurisdiction.
- Judiciary-related queries: Pending DHFL-related cases in the Supreme Court; Supreme Court portal tracking of insolvency issues involving Wadhawan brothers.
- Investor protection and fund utilization: Utilization of SEBI’s Investor Protection Fund for fixed deposit holders of an insolvent company.
- Constitutional and political propriety: Legality and constitutionality of the Ram Mandir inauguration by a sitting Prime Minister.
- Financial transparency in insolvency resolution: Total expenditure of the RBI-appointed Committee of Creditors in the DHFL case.
- Accountability of oversight institutions: Failure of RBI, IBBI, and CAG to provide data or accept responsibility for public financial records.
This is not merely about one insolvency case or a single set of missing records. It is about defending the very idea that public information belongs to the public. Each unanswered RTI, each evasive reply, and each bureaucratic transfer tightens the noose around democratic accountability. The Right to Information Act was not a gift from above—it was won through years of struggle, and it will survive only if we, the people, use it relentlessly.
Today, the ranks of the contemporary Indian crony oligarchy are united in their will to hide. They have the resources, influence, and machinery to bury the truth. What we have is our persistence and our collective numbers. Every RTI you file is a breach in the wall of secrecy—a reminder to the state that the public will not quietly surrender its right to know.
Filing an RTI on the Committee of Creditors’ expenditures is crucial because it shines light on how public money and resources were spent during the DHFL resolution. Without transparency, there is no way to hold powerful actors accountable for potential misuse or hidden costs. Demanding this information is demanding justice—not just for DHFL victims, but for every citizen whose trust in financial institutions and regulators is at stake.
If we don’t act now, RTI won’t end suddenly—it will slowly fade away because of neglect. When RTI dies, transparency dies too, and with it, a vital part of our democracy. We can’t let that happen.
Join us. File your RTI, DHFL Victims. Ask questions to power. Demand answers. Silence helps corruption. Together, we can stop it.
Please share this appeal widely within your communities. The more voices demand transparency, the harder it is for the powerful to hide.
ENDNOTES
- The regime of opaque electoral bonds⤡ has ended without any meaningful criminal liability for the political parties that reaped massive corporate donations, often funneled through shell companies. No arrests, no prosecutions, no disqualification of beneficiaries. The system moves on as if the violation never occurred, revealing not merely a legal loophole but a crony collusion in which corporate money and political power feed off each other while the public remains locked out of the truth. ↩︎
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