Rajya Sabha MP and BJP member Dr. Subramanian Swamy, known to be critical about government functioning, has hit out again. This time, the former cabinet minister has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking a CBI probe into the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) functioning and has asked the Government to put the merger of Laxmi Vilas Bank (LVB) with DBS on hold.

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"I have written to Prime Minister @narendramodi today about the corrupt merger of Laxmi Vilas Bank with DBS," Mr. Swami tweeted.

ABP News reviewed the letter, which said, "Request for an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the functioning of RBI, especially in light of the fact that CBI has never found it necessary even to investigate any office of the RBI in any of the high-profile scams."

Dr. Swamy's letter requested the Government to put the merger on hold to facilitate a forensic audit of the takeover of the assets of LVB by DBS and called for an examination of the allegations against the DBS made internationally and within its home country Singapore for money laundering.

In his letter, Dr. Swamy said RBI's functioning must remain one of the Government's top priorities and urged the Centre to send the RBI Governor on indefinite leave till the investigations are over. He also asked the Prime Minister to reconstitute RBI Board and advisory committees. "Functioning of RBI as a regulator of banks and NBFCs leaves a lot to be desired," said Swamy.

Terming the merger as one of the most "scandalous" government financial institution decision, Dr. Swamy said the arbitrary manner in which the DBS Bank was chosen raised tough questions on the functioning and integrity of India's central bank and claimed that LVB was 20 times larger than DBS in all dimensions of banking.

The economics professor alleged that although the RBI is armed with extraordinary regulatory, supervisory and monitoring powers vis-a-vis the banks under the Banking Regulation Act, and its nominees are represented in the Board of all Banks including the LVB, Banks after Banks have suffered losses and rise in NPA.

"What is amazing is that RBI had sought objections from stakeholders which were to be filed by the close of business hours on November 20, 2020, effectively giving less than 72 hours to them to respond," said the Harvard graduate.

Questioning RBI's functioning and integrity, he said, "The haste with which RBI carried out the scheme of amalgamation, the short-shrift has given to the well-taken objections of the stakeholders, the unprecedented and unreasonable terms under which the bond and shareholders' interest have been written off, and the arbitrary manner in which DBS Bank was chosen without any standard operating procedure in such proposals and raise serious questions on RBI's functioning and integrity."