NEW DELHI: A list of corporate loan defaulters will soon be made public as the Supreme Court directed the Centre on Tuesday to provide a compendium of corporate entities, who owe Rs 500 crore or more to banks, in four weeks. A bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud brushed aside the RBI’s objections in October against making public the list of big loan defaulters, which was submitted in a sealed cover.
After perusing the list, the bench in October said it appeared 57 debtors had defaulted on repaying around Rs 85,000 crore. If the loan threshold is lowered below Rs 500 crore, the default amount crosses Rs 1 lakh crore. It is a phenomenal amount. Why should the names of these defaulters not be made public?" the bench had asked.
Petitioner NGO’s counsel Prashant Bhushan has been pitching for ‘naming and shaming’ big defaulters. The SC had asked RBI: "Borrowers have taken money from banks and defaulted in repaying the loan. You call this information confidential? It may affect borrowers but how does making information public affect RBI?"
Please click here to read more.