Delhi -- Expressing serious concern over the rise in bad loans in India's banking system, the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to provide a list of companies which are defaulters of bank loans of over Rs 500 crore.
The apex court also asked the RBI to provide within six weeks the list of companies whose loans have been restructured under corporate debt restructuring schemes.
A bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur asked for the list of loan defaulters to be placed before it in a sealed cover.
The bench, also comprising Justices U U Lalit and R Banumathi, wanted to know how the state-owned banks and financial institutions were advancing large-scale loans without proper guidelines and whether there was adequate mechanism to recover them.
The court made RBI party to a PIL filed in 2005 by an NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) in which it has raised the issue of loans advanced to some companies by state- owned Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO).
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for CPIL, submitted that about Rs 40,000 crore of corporate debt was written off in 2015.
