Oakbay Investments, the company owned by the wealthy Gupta family, on Friday lambasted Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s court application seeking a court order enforcing his decision not to intervene in the debacle relating to the South African banks that cut links with the controversial family.

“The Minister’s superfluous application is riddled with factual and legal errors. The Minister’s reliance on the list of 72 purported ‘suspicious transaction reports’ is misplaced and the minister’s application is supported by a flawed analysis and a faulty factual record,” Oakbay submitted to court in responding papers, through their attorneys Van der Merwe & Associates.

“Oakbay has never suggested that the minister is required to intervene in the bank-customer relationship. There is no contested legal issue here and there is never any reason for the minister to bring this application.”

The Gupta-owned entity argues that Gordhan could have simply declined to do anything on the debacle, without “racing” to the courts.

“Instead, he has asked the court to confirm that he does not have to do anything. The minister has essentially asked the court to insert itself into the functioning of the executive branch. It would be bizarre if every empowered government official receiving a request for assistance or counsel, races to court to seek a declaration that he/she does not have to act on the request,” Oakbay argued.

“If the courts were to countenance the minister’s application for guidance, it would open the floodgates for other weak-kneed political officials who are too scared to take positions on sensitive political and policy matters and would make the judiciary a maker of political judgements. This application is an abuse of court and an effort to involve the independent judiciary to settle political scores.”

Oakbay’s court papers on Friday were in response to Gordhan’s explosive affidavit, which was filed last year.

In his affidavit, Gordhan argues that he did not have the legal mandate to intervene in the decisions by several South African banks to stop doing business with the family, and to close their accounts.

In September, Gordhan revealed that he had met with then Oakbay Investments CEO Nazeem Howa in May last year, and told him he could not intervene in a dispute with the country’s major banks which had severed ties with the Gupta-owned company.

In a written reply to a parliamentary question, Gordhan said Howa requested the meeting in two letters dated in April to ask the Treasury to intervene in the dispute and any job losses that could occur at the holding company and its associated companies because of the decision by the banks to close Oakbay’s bank accounts.