That is the problem with small-minded people thrust into key posts where they think they are the masters of all that they survey. The case in point is of the Central Information Commissioner M Sridhar Acharyulu. He is prone to resort to hyperbole and issue diktats which exceed his authority and often employs avoidable rhetoric. Nobody should assume that only the CIC is the protector of public weal and can proceed from the predisposed attitude that everyone else is out to pelt the system or is outright thuggish.
Instead of appreciating the genuine problems of other authorities, instead of understanding the reasons why they wouldn’t do what the CIC or even the courts would like them to do, shooting off rude diktats does not show them in good light. The above is in the context of the directive to the RBI issued by the great Acharyulu, apparently the lone defender of the public interest, to explain why “maximum penalty should not be imposed on him for” the central bank’s alleged defiance of the apex court order to disclose the names of the willful defaulters of bank loans.
Acharyulu has set a deadline of November 16 for the RBI Governor Urjit Patel to comply with his order and furnish the information about those owing Rs 1,000 crore or more to the banks. Now, the Supreme Court itself did not fully appreciate the downsize of naming those owing big money to the banks. One, naming them might harm their interests in case their businesses are running and engaged in repayment of the loans since their associates and customers might lose further confidence in their credit worthiness.
In such a situation, even those businesses which are trying to get back on their feet in order to clear their debt might suffer a huge blow, an outcome that would scupper whatever little chance there might be of the banks recovering their funds. Two, not all borrowers are willful defaulters. Quite a few are victims of the adverse business cycle and might be waiting for the tide to turn for them to pay off the debt to the banks. Yes, there is yet another category of borrowers who having siphoned off funds into private accounts need to be dealt with sternly.
The banking regulator is already engaged in proceeding against these willful defaulters, forcing them to sell their assets so that the lending institutions can recover their loans, if not all of it at least as much as is possible under the circumstances. Sitting on his high perch, Acharyulu has not even spared the Finance Ministry, ticking it off for not explaining the action taken or contemplated for recovering bad loans from willful defaulters.
If only Acharyulu cared to follow the financial news he would realise that the ordinary people are already well aware of the strenuous efforts being made to recover money from willful defaulters. A number of marquee names in the world of business and industry have been forced to sell their assets under distress to ensure that they pay up their loans to the banks. Proceedings under the bankruptcy and insolvency law have been launched against quite a few defaulters.
For the first time in free India, businessmen are being made to pay up or else face sternest possible punishment in sharp contrast to the practice hitherto when the defaulters were able to evergreen their loans in collusion with the incumbent authorities or using the same route were able to get these completely written off. Acharyulu would have not flexed his ‘CIC muscle’ had he cared to appreciate the factors why it is bad for the recovery of bank loans if the borrowers’ names are made public.
Naming and shaming them would not serve any public purpose but it would certainly lower the chances of the banks recovering their loans. Yes, the Supreme Court is not infallible, though it is final. The RBI ought to have gone back to the apex court and asked for the order to be revised given that its implementation would harm the public interest.
