On the 26th of April, the Supreme Court (SC) asked the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to make the list of defaulters public. In its order to the RBI, the SC asked the Bank to disclose the names of loan defaulters under the Right To Information (RTI) Act.
A bench consisting of Justices L. Nageswara Rao and M.R. Shah asked the RBI to withdraw its non disclosure policy and warned the Bank of avoiding further violations. According to the RBI’s policy, it cannot disclose the names of those who defaulted on their loans.
The original order was issued to the RBI in the year 2015 and the SC said the RBI wasn’t complying with the order for the last four years despite being required to do so as per the rules of the transparency law.
The order on Friday is a part of multiple attempts made by the SC to obtain information about those who defaulted on their loans. This decision was taken because of the massive debt people owe to the banks. The RBI was resisting this move because of the negative impact it could have on the financial stability of banks across India.
While the bench held the RBI in contempt for not complying with the SC’s order in 2015, no charges were levied. Instead, the SC gave the RBI a serious warning and asked them to disclose the required details at the earliest.
This is not the first time the SC issued a warning with regard to this to the RBI. The SC had sent a contempt notice to the RBI in January this year, based on a petition filed by RTI activists Subhash Chandra Agrawal and Girish Mittal.
According to the petition, former RBI Governor Urjit Patel had wilfully not disclosed information as directed by the SC in 2015. While listening to Subash Chandra’s petition, the SC said RBI should immediately disclose all the details required.
Stay tuned for more updates.
