THE New Nation on Monday reported that over 17,659 cases are pending at the moment with Artha Rin Adalat for the four state-owned commercial banks (SCBs) — Sonali, Janata, Agrani and Rupali Banks to recover around Tk 22,000 crore outstanding loans from the defaulters. These cases move very slow or saw no progress and appear almost abandoned for many reasons. The report has blamed an unholy nexus between the powerful defaulters and the banks’ lawyers, indifference among banks’ officials and lack of state support and political will to expedite the disposal of the cases. What is noticeable is that the government is routinely recapitalizing those banks to keep them functioning, but effective administrative and legal steps are not forthcoming from the Ministry of Finance, Bangladesh Bank and the concerned banks to use the Artha Rin Adalat to force the defaulters to repay the loans. What is really surprising is that some defaulters have good relation with the banks and the government. In many cases their personal contacts are powerful than facing the compulsion to settle the case. Legal problems are also causing delays. Inefficiency of banks’ solicitors and their underhand dealing with opponents’ counsels are similarly blamed for prolonging the cases. A central bank official has blamed some defaulters for openly hindering the speedy disposal of the cases but what is important is lack of committed attempts from the banks’ side to see an end to the cases making the entire process just an eye wash. Otherwise why the number of cases are not coming down and instead exponentially rising every year. Many believe that banks should take up the issue seriously and must formulate a sound mechanism to settle the cases in a time-bound manner. Lawyers must be able to settle the cases within the time or must stand to hand over the case to others. Artha Rin Adalat has been given extreme power for helping the banks to realise bank’s money with no consideration for the difficulties of the loan takers. One’s dwelling house and private properties have to be sold invariably and big corruption goes on in the auction sale process. Most important is such cruel arrangement is of no help for the investors and biggest defaulters have other ways to avoid facing Artha Rin Adalat.
