"While the Ministry of Corporate Affairs has filed its counter affidavit, the counsel for the Union of India submits that the Ministry of Finance may be granted some time to file its counter affidavit. The counter affidavit (response) be filed within three weeks," a bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice J B Pardiwala said.

Earlier, the Court issued notices to the two union ministries, market regulator SEBI and the RBI. 

In its plea, petitioner also sought a direction to establish a procedure that eliminates unnecessary litigation while dealing with claims of legal heirs qua bank deposits, insurance, post office funds etc. Further the amount lying with the Investor Education Protection Fund, started at Rs 400 crore in 1999, was 10 times higher at Rs 4,100 crore at the end of March 2020, the plea said.

The petition stated there is an urgent need to develop a centralised online database under the control of RBI that will provide information about the deceased account holder including such details as the name, address and last date of transaction by the deceased account holder.

Further, it should be mandatory for banks to inform the RBI about the inoperative or dormant bank accounts. This exercise should be repeated after an interval of 9-12 months.

The need for a centralised database providing information of deceased account holders also becomes extremely essential when seen in the context of the already existing time consuming and cumbersome process that legal heirs have to go through while making claims after the death of an individual, the plea said. 

The next date of hearing is on 28th April.