Howrah News Service -  Latest news and headlines on Howrah,West Bengal and World: Bankers need to be more generous in recovering debt

Bankers need to be more generous in recovering debt
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newsbyte on 01 June, 2008 09:12:11
 
Supreme Court judges on Sunday asked the bankers to be more lenient in
recovering their debts while considering the paying capacity of borrowers and
utilise Lok Adalats for recovering the bad loans.
Bankers were required to be more lenient in resolving Non-Performing Assets
(NPA) related disputes after carefully considering the paying capacity of the
borrowers, said Supreme Court judge H S Bedi at a seminar on 'Alternative
Dispute Redressal Mechanism for Bank's Debt by Bankers' Executive Forum in
Chandigarh on Sunday.
"For that matter you (bankers) might have to swallow the bitter pill," he
asserted.
He further asked the bankers not to undertake steps which are undesirable while
handling their debt related cases. He also advised them to bring their as many
cases as they could in Lok Adalat for settling their debt related issues.
"While considering the plight of the borrowing party, some time you (bankers)
may have to even bear the loss so as to settle the matter in public interest,"
Justice M S Gill said in his address.
Gill, who is also Executive Chairman of Punjab Legal Services Authority, also
expressed surprise over the reduction in number of cases coming into Lok Adalats
in Punjab and asked them to ponder over this phenomenon.
He said that in 2007-08 just 1414 cases were settled in 554 Lok Adalats which
were held against 9309 cases settled through 512 Lok Adalats in 2001-02 in the
state.
Sharing his experience while handling bank related cases, he also said that in
many of the cases he observed the branch level bank officials were not given
adequate powers to decide on the matters in Lok Adalats.
General Manager of Canara bank N Seshadri sharing his experiences with Lok
Adalats highlighted manpower shortage for service of summons in cases filed at
pre-litigative stage, reluctance of Presiding Officers to invoke penal
provisions for ensuring attendance of borrowers, inadequate delegations of power
on bankers as some of the reasons for not approaching to such ad hoc courts.
Long process in execution of decree if borrower backs out from settlement, as
execution of decree takes quiet longer time in the Session Courts, needs to be
addressed, he added.
He also sought enactment of special law by Parliament which would deal with
only bank debt related cases, with a certain amount of ceiling, in order to
speed up the recovery of the stuck money.