As I mentioned earlier, the Reserve Bank is vested with the discretionary powers to approve the voluntary amalgamation of two banking companies under the provisions of Section 44-A of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949.
However, these powers do not extend to the voluntary amalgamation of a non-banking company with a banking company where amalgamations were governed by sections 391 to 394 of the Companies Act, 1956 in terms of which, the scheme of amalgamation has to be approved by the High Court.