Economic Times: New Delhi: Wednesday, May 24, 2017.
The Reserve
Bank of India (RBI) has refused to make public the list of loan defaulters with
public sector banks despite an order of the Supreme Court in 2015 to make this
information public.
The case
relates to an RTI application filed by activist Subhash Agrawal who had sought to
know the list of people who had defaulted in the loan of Rs one crore and
above.
According to
the government, the gross nonperforming assets (NPA) of the public sector banks
stood at Rs 6.06 lakh crore as on December 31, 2016. The RBI had denied the
information citing the clauses of economic interests of the state, the
commercial confidence and the information held in fiduciary capacity.
It had also
cited the provisions of Section 45E of the RBI Act, 1934 which prohibits disclosure
of credit information.
On December
16, 2015 the apex court had clearly rejected these arguments of the RBI, in a matter
filed by another RTI applicant, and ordered disclosure of defaulters' list,
upholding a Central Information Commission (CIC) order. Still,
the Bankers' Bank cited same arguments to deny information to Agrawal, who
escalated the matter to the CIC.
During the
hearing, the RBI also said the Supreme Court is hearing a matter in which
reports have been sought in a sealed envelop and hence any decision should be
avoided.
A twomember
CIC bench gave reprieve to the RBI as it agreed to not pass any order till the
pending matter, where disclosure of defaulters having dues of over Rs 500 crore
towards the banks, was decided by the apex court.
The bench,
comprising Information Commissioners Manjula Prasher and Sudhir Bhargava, did not
accept Agarwal's plea that a case was already decided by the Supreme Court in
which clear directives have been given and is a law of land, and not a pending
case.
In 2015, the
apex court had stated that the RBI is supposed to uphold public interest and
not the interest of individual banks.
The RBI is
clearly not in any fiduciary relationship with any bank, it had said.
"The RBI
has a statutory duty to uphold the interest of the public at large, the
depositors, the country's economy and the banking sector," it had said
while directing the RBI to disclose the list of defaulters.
The court had
said that the RBI is duty bound to comply with the provisions of the RTI Act.
"The
baseless and unsubstantiated argument of the RBI that the disclosure would hurt
the economic interest of the country is totally misconceived," the court
had said.
The apex
court had said that the facts reveal that banks were trying to cover up their
underhand actions, they are even more liable to be subjected to public
scrutiny.
It had passed
the order of disclosure after hearing the arguments of the RBI which had sought
refuge under the Section 45E of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 which says
disclosure of any information relating to credit information submitted by
banking company is
confidential.
It had said the RTI Act, 2005 is a general provision which cannot override
specific provisions relating to confidentiality in earlier legislation in
accordance with the principle that where there are general words in a later
statute it cannot be held that the earlier statutes are repealed altered or
discarded.
Rejecting
these arguments, the apex court had ordered the disclosure of information
relating to loan default and other such details sought by various applicants.
Some of these
arguments, rejected by the Supreme Court, were put by the RBI before the CIC
during the hearing of Agrawal's case.