NARESH PAUL CENTRE

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Press Statement issued on 02nd May 2019 by Shri Debasish Basu Chaudhury,
General Secretary, Bank Employees Federation of India, at Kolkata,
ON SUPREME COURT JUDGEMENT ON DISCLOSURE REGARDING BAD DEBTS

We welcome the Supreme Court order issued on the 26th of April 2019 directing the Reserve
Bank of India to stop blocking disclosure of information under the Right to Information Act
2005 including the list of bank defaulters, annual inspection reports of banks and other
documents. It asked RBI to amend its ‘Disclosure Policy’ in line with its earlier ruling on
16.12.15. The order is part of relentless attempts to extract information in the backdrop of
mounting corporate bad debts in banks with the RBI and the Government resisting such
attempts. Gross NPA of banks have mounted to Rs.11.2 lakh crores in FY 2018.

Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI) has been incessantly demanding of the
Government and the RBI to publish the list of bank loan defaulters, at the least, the
corporate defaulters above Rs.5 crores and take stringent criminal action against them in
order to recover the money from them in public interest. We published a list of defaulters
above Rs.10 crores in July, 2014. The bank employees and officers under the banner of
United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), the umbrella organization, are on the move against
sharp increase of bad debts, particularly during the tenure of present Govt. at the Centre. A
number strikes were observed by UFBU highlighting the issue of bad debts which had been
eating the huge operating profits of the public sector banks.

Abetted by the Govt. of India, all Financial Institutions including RBI itself have been denying
information related to serious irregularities, malpractices and action taken against the
perpetrators by the regulatory authorities, especially the private banks and cooperative
banks under the pretext of economic interest, commercial confidence, fiduciary relationship
or public interest. The attitude encouraged naked plunder of public money and the
institution of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) 2016 was created to formalize the
pillage.

The Apex Court judgement reflects the cry of the left and democratic movement and also of
the bank employees/officers in particular while reminding the RBI, created by a statute of
the Parliament, of its statutory duty to uphold the interests of the public at large, the
depositors, the country’s economy and the banking sector. It stated that by attaching
‘fiduciary label’ to its statutory duty, the RBI, intentionally or unintentionally created an in
terrorem effect. The fact reveals that some banks, mostly in the private sector and
cooperative sector are trying to cover up their underhand actions. The RBI, in association
with them has been trying to hide the acts from public scrutiny. RBI should act with
transparency and not hide information.

The apex Court, quite significantly, referred to a judgment by a seven member bench of the
Court, AIR 1982 SC 149 stated, “…if secrecy were to be observed in the functioning of the
Government and the processes of the Government were to be hidden from public scrutiny,
it would tend to promote or encourage oppression, corruption, misuse and abuse of
authority, for it would all be shrouded in the veil of secrecy without any public
accountability.”

The severe indictment by the Supreme Court reaffirms the uncompromising struggles of
BEFI and UFBU, ably supported by the left movement of the country, against the neoliberal
policy regime of the Government that acts as an instrument to further the loot and plunder
of the oligarchies at the expense of the working people. The landmark judgement will
strengthen the struggle to reverse the policies in favour of the people.

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To
The News Editor/Chief Reporter,

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For favour of circulation/broadcasting/telecasting through your esteemed media.

(CHIRANJIT GHOSH)
JOINT SECRETARY