SC Articulates its Desire for Centre to Hasten Implementation of Waiver Scheme

Supreme Court talks out its wish on the Waiver Scheme

Thursday, 15th October 2020

The Supreme Court has suggested while it acknowledges the Centre’s decision to waive interests on loans of up to Rs2-crore under the RBI moratorium scheme, it would like the implementation to be done “as soon as possible”.

The Centre had announced this move of giving a waiver of compound interest on instalments for borrowers of loans up to 2-crore that is payable during the six-month moratorium period of March 1 to August 31.

The bench, comprising of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R S Reddy and M R Shah, have called it a “welcome decision” keeping in mind the “plight of the common man”. However, they said, the Centre has merely given an affidavit and not “issued any order to anybody”.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the bench that the decision was an “informed” one. He added that the government’s step to mention about their decision on its October 2 affidavit should leave no apprehensions about its implementation.

The bench continued to harp on the “plight of the common people” and pressed on their question as to why the Centre required a month’s time to implement “such a small decision”, that could be easily done by issuing a directive to banks.

Posting the matter for further hearing on November 2, the top court told advocates who were appearing for banks and the Centre that “Diwali is in your hands”.

Senior advocate who appeared for the banks association, Harish Salve told the bench that banks too would implement whatever decision has been taken by the government.

Salve also stated that the number of beneficiaries they are going to have to deal with is quite large as the less-than-Rs 2 crore category entails a huge number and thus banks cannot act on the policy decision without a proper notification from the RBI mentioning its proper mechanism of implementation.

The finance ministry had earlier clarified on the categories where MSME and personal loans would benefit under this scheme, which includes educational, housing, auto, consumer durables, credit card dues, personal, professional and consumption loans.

Source: Times of India