India, Feb. 25 -- The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) Master Directions on classifying debtors' accounts as fraud cannot be interpreted to cause prejudice to lender banks and harm their interests, a division bench of the Bombay High Court said on Monday while striking down a single-judge bench's order in December, which had granted a major reprieve to industrialist Anil Ambani.

The division bench of chief justice Shree Chandrashekhar and justice Gautam Akhand said the Master Directions are intended to secure public money, provide a framework for the early detection of fraud, and recover public money through timely identification, control, reporting and mitigation of fraud risk.

"These directions cannot be interpreted in a different mann...