Bhopal, Apr 27: The Madhya Pradesh High Court's Indore bench has admitted a public interest plea challenging the Reserve Bank of India's directives issued to commercial banks for calculation of interest on savings bank deposits.

Justices RS Garg and AM Sapre on April 21 directed the RBI and Finance Ministry to file replies by May 15 to the points raised in the petition by local Financial Consultant Mahesh Natani and Investment Consultant Ajit Jain who were represented by Advocate Vijayesh Atre.

The petitioners submitted that the RBI's directive to banks for calculation of interest on savings accounts was issued between 1940 and 1950. The methodology has not undergone any change till date. Under the existing methodology, interest on savings accounts is calculated on the minimum balance held by the account-holder between the tenth and the last day of each month. That is in contrast to RBI directives issued to banks in regard to loan accounts where the interest is calculated on daily outstanding balance.

The plea pointed out that by calculating interest on savings deposit accounts based on the present methodology commercial banks are paying less interest to the tune of Rs 8,500 crore.