Clarifying its position on its March 27 verdict, the Supreme Court on Friday said it had not directed banks to hear the borrower in person before declaring his account as ‘fraud’.
The court has given this clarification on behalf of the State Bank of India (SBI) on two points present in the March 27 order. A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice PS Narasimha and Justice JB Pardiwala said, ‘We have never said that borrowers should be given an opportunity to represent themselves in person. We had said that they should be given a chance to present their case by giving proper notice.
On the issue of retrospective effect of its previous order, the bench said that at this juncture, SBI would have to file a review petition against the judgement. A bench headed by the Chief Justice had said in one of its judgments on March 27 that if an account is declared fake, not only will it be reported to the investigating agencies, but the borrower will also face penal and civil cases. Will have to ,
Verdict on SBI’s petition
On March 27, a bench of Chief Justice Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Hima Kohli observed that declaring accounts as frauds adversely affects the lives of borrowers as well. The bank should give them an opportunity of being heard before classifying their accounts as fraud under the fraud guidelines. The decision has come on a petition by the State Bank of India.
RBI’s 2016 Master Circular on ‘Fraud Classification and Reporting by Commercial Banks and Select FIS’ was challenged before various High Courts. It had asked banks to beware of big loan defaulters. RBI had said that banks should declare such accounts as fraud if found suspicious.
Know what was the matter
SBI had filed a petition in the Supreme Court against a decision of the Telangana High Court. The Telangana High Court had ruled in the year 2020 on the petition of Rajesh Aggarwal that before declaring any account as a fraud, the account holder should get a chance to be heard.
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