The action of All India Bank Employee’s Association (AIBEA) in releasing the list of 2426 willful defaulters who owe Rs.1,47,350 crore to public sector banks is highly laudable. Certainly the gesture of releasing this vital information in the public domain is in the best interest of the country as claimed by the Association, whose demand that these defaulters should not be allowed to contest in elections and hold public offices is cent-per-cent justifiable. Equally justifiable is their demand that the Banks must publish the names of all defaulters and stringent measures must be taken to recover the corporate loans and willful default must be treated as a criminal offence. It is widely believed that NPAs (bad debts) of Indian banks have crossed Rs.10 lakh crores, and Anil Ambani Group, Adani Group, and Videocon Groups have large NPAs.
It is public knowledge that the damage caused by willful corporate defaulters to the country’s banking system and economy is colossal. A majority of them are thriving on scarce public resources, on the hard earned money of honest people. It is high time that willful defaults were treated as a criminal offence through proper legislation having very sharp teeth. Otherwise, there cannot be any respite from this precarious state of affairs. RBI should institute an information system which mandates the banks to publish the names of willful defaulters (beyond a certain amount) at least on a half yearly basis.
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