Gulam Rabbani :
Most loan defaulters are taking advantages of the lengthy process in the country’s judicial system. As a result, thousands of lawsuits of the scheduled banks and other financial institutions have been piled in the Artha Rin Adalat (money loan courts).
According to a Bangladesh Bank statistics, a total of 62 thousand and 204 cases are pending with money loan courts across the country till June 2019. In contrast, the amount of lawsuit money stands at Tk 1176.14 billion.
But these figures are different as per the Supreme Court (SC) records. According to the Supreme Court statistics, until June 2019, at least 21,849 cases were pending for disposal in the money loan courts across the country.
And 1592 cases have been pending for over five years, according to the SC records.
Sources said, the cases are pending for years due to the weakness of the existing law, lack of required number of judges, courtrooms and the complexities in case management.
Banks and financial institutions are unable to overcome this vicious cycle though a huge amount of money is stuck in the pending cases. In most cases, money loan courts cannnot complete trial within the stipulated time (maximum 120 working days) mandated by the Artha Rin Adalat Ain, 2003.
The law was enacted on March 10, 2003 in order to further modification and consolidation of the existing law to realise loans by the financial institutions.
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said, “The ratio of disposal of the cases in the money loan courts is comparatively low. So the respective banks and financial institutions have to be more serious to recover the loan. They have to appoint competent lawyers and monitor the cases regularly.”
“The courts are trying their best to dispose of the highest numbers of cases. There is no opportunity to be hurry in disposing of a case. A judge has to hear both the parties for establishing the justice,” Attorney General also said.
Sources said, the government wants to reduce the amount of defaulted loans in the interest of the economy. And the main way to reduce the amount of the defaulted loans is to quickly dispose of pending cases of the money loan courts.
According to the Bangladesh Bank statistics, till June 2019, State-owned six commercial banks have 18947 cases in the money loan courts and Tk 550.93 billion has been stuck with these cases. State-owned specialised banks have 6537 cases and Tk 21.32 billion is involved with these cases.
Private banks of the country have 29170 cases in the money loan courts and Tk 581.70 billion has been stuck with these cases, the central bank statistics also read.
Besides, foreign banks have 7550 cases in the money loan courts which involved Tk 22.17 billion.
In total, 165 cases are pending in the Bankruptcy Courts involving Tk 5.21 billion, 157088 cases are pending in Certificates Courts involving Tk 5.33 billion and 35514 cases are pending in other courts of the country which involved Tk 420.54 billion.
In total, 9363 cases have been placed under alternative dispute resolution (ADR) system which involved Tk 55.76 billion.
Many borrowers have filed writ petition with the High Court regarding their loans. In most cases, the writ petitioners got stay order in favour of them. That is why, banks and other financial institutions couldn’t able to recover the loan from the borrowers and at the same time the borrowers couldn’t be identified as loan defaulters.
The top bankers see these writ petitions as the biggest obstacle to recover the defaulted loans.
Dr Zaid Bakht, Chairman of Agrani Bank Limited, said, “We don’t have enough courts to hear the huge number of lawsuits. At the same time there is a lack of required number of judges. There is also an opportunity to waste time in the trial process. Later a defaulted party appeals in the higher court after completing a trial process in the lower court. As a result a case runs year after year.”
So it is urgent to set a dedicated and special High Court Bench for the disposal of the money loan cases, Dr Zaid suggested.
He also said that a provision can be added in the rules that one loan defaulter has to deposit a sum of money before filing any appeal to the higher courts.
