New Delhi: Banks operating in India have written off bad loans worth Rs 660 thousand crore since 2014, as per RBI data studied by CineBuster. The quantum of loans that were written off amounts to half of the total non-performing assets or bad loans that were recorded in the financial books of the banks.

Data published by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) also shows that as much as Rs. 237 thousand crore was written off from the financial books of the banks in financial year 2018-19 alone.

The graph shown below charts the steep rise in the amount being written off, often referred by banks as technical write-offs, allowing them to clean up their books, as the banks fail to recover the loans.

According to the RBI data, NPAs or bad loans on the financial books of banks have also seen a steep rise ever since 2014 – also the year the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government came to power at the Centre.

The total NPAs in 2013-14 amounted Rs. 205 thousand crore, which rose to a whopping Rs 1,173 thousand crore in 2018-2019. This steep rise in NPAs is shocking, especially under the watch of party that promised in its 2014 election manifesto that it would “take necessary steps to reduce NPAs in banking sector.”

During the same period, the cases of bank frauds also saw a steep rise. Cases of frauds of more than Rs 1 lakh stood at 4,306 in 2012-13, and rose to 6,801 in 2018-19.

As the number of bank fraud cases increased, so did the amount of money sunk owing to these frauds. According to RBI’s annual report for 2018-19, the amount sunk in March 2013 due to bank frauds was Rs. 10.2 thousand crore, which rose to a shocking Rs 71.5 thousand crore in March 2018.

The impact of rising bad loans and growing cases of bank frauds is already being felt by depositors, the latest example being the collapse of private sector Yes Bank. In on of the biggest ever bank failures in the country, the private lender collapsed, forcing RBI to impose a moratorium on the private lender on March 5. The beleaguered bank is now set to be bailed out with State Bank of India (SBI) being the lead rescuer, along with some private banks.

Often referred by the industry experts, analysts and bank employees’ unions as the reason behind the ‘scrambling’ Indian banking industry, the rising NPAs, written off bad loans, bank fraud cases, paint a sorry picture for the future of the Indian banking system.

New Delhi: The gazette notification effecting the transfer of Justice S. Muralidhar from the Delhi high court on Wednesday couldn’t have been more curiously timed.

On the day the judge held three key hearings on the Delhi riots and passed orders that annoyed the Modi government at the Centre, the law ministry issued a notification formally shifting him from the crucial Delhi high court to the Punjab and Haryana high court.

The notification is dated February 26, 2020, and comes 14 days after the Supreme court collegium decided to recommend Justice Muralidhar’s transfer. The collegium took two other transfer decisions on February 12 as part of the same resolution: to move Justice Ranjit More from the Bombay high court to Meghalaya, and Justice R.K. Malimath from Karnataka to Uttarakhand.

Separate notifications for the transfers of Justice More and Malimath were also issued by the law ministry on Wednesday night.

Earlier in the day, Justice Muralidhar presided over three sittings where urgent pleas relating to police inaction in the Delhi riots came up.

Order directing police to protect riot injured and ensure transfer to hospital Justice Muralidhar and Justice A.J. Bhambhani held an emergency sitting at 1 a.m. on Wednesday following an urgent plea from counsel representing the Al Hind Hospital in Mustafabad, North East Delhi.

Modi Government Wastes No Time Moving Justice Muralidhar Out of Delhi High Court

The hospital asked the court to direct the Delhi Police to help it shift over 20 persons injured in the riots to the government-run GTB hospital where they could receive proper treatment. The police did not respond to its call for help and only escorted the patients out when the high court bench ordered them to do so.

Hearing on police failure to file FIRs against BJP leaders for hate speech Also on Wednesday, Justice Muralidhar pulled up the Delhi police and solicitor general Tushar Mehta for not following the Lalita Kumari guidelines on registering an FIR when complaints were brought to it about inflammatory speeches made by BJP leaders Kapil Mishra, Anurag Thakur, Parvesh Varma and others. These guidelines mandate the registering of an FIR if a cognisable offence is disclosed, or else a time-bound enquiry.

The hearing was on an urgent petition filed by social activists Harsh Mander and Farah Naqvi.

Despite a strong protest by Mehta, the judge ordered the police to respond by Thursday on whether they intend to file FIRs or not.

Justice Muralidhar’s third hearing on the riots – a continuation of the early morning one – saw the police confirming that all the patients of Al Hind Hospital had been shifted to safety.

“This shows that a lot can happen when the authorities are willing to take action. It’s an actual demonstration of how police officers are waiting for the orders to act”, he said.

In his final  order, he directed the government to ensure displaced riot victims are provided temporary shelter and that medical treatment and counselling are also ensured for them.

Chief Justice was on leave, returns Thursday. These matters landed on Justice Muralidhar’s docket by happenstance as the chief justice of the Delhi high court, Justice D.N. Patel was on leave. The second senior judge, acting on behalf of the chief in his absence, handed the hospital’s late night writ to Justice Muralidhar.

Mander and Naqvi’s plea for registration of FIRs against BJP leaders was taken up by Justice Muralidhar in the chief justice’s absence as the petitioners sought an urgent hearing. Solicitor general Mehta contested the urgency and wanted the matter deferred till Thursday, when he said the chief justice would return, but Justice Muralidhar would not agree.

It is not clear if Chief Justice Patel is cutting short his leave to return to court on Thursday or was scheduled to return that day anyway.

Time taken from collegium decision to gazette notification. The Centre’s decision to transfer Justice Muralidhar on Wednesday is bound to raise questions about whether his orders in the Delhi riots matters hastened his exit.

While there is no fixed time for the Centre to act on a collegium recommendation for  the transfer of high court judges or even the appointment of new ones it is not unusual for several weeks to elapse.

The high court bar association had protested Justice Muralidhar’s transfer last week.

BJP MP says investors should not be terrorised by I-T and GST provisions
BJP leader and MP Subramanian Swamy stressed the need for ensuring economic growth at 10% a year for the next decade for the country to become a super power.

Towards this end, efforts should be made to see that investors are not terrorised by the provisions of the income tax and goods and services tax. The GST, he said, was the “biggest madness” of the century and it is so complicated that no one understood the finer aspects like which form to fill and where. The BJP MP was speaking on ‘India – an economic superpower by 2030’, an event organised by Pragna Bharati here on Wednesday.

He expressed concern over the insistence on submission of the GST-related forms online and said the focus should instead be on improving the efficiency levels of investments for ensuring the anticipated 10% annual growth for the next 10 years. The country had achieved 8% growth from time to time, but there had been no improvements relating to the reforms put in place by former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao.

The country was currently faced with shortage of demand as people did not have money to spend and this was in turn hindering the economic cycle. If the country wanted to achieve 10% growth, the investment rate to the GDP should be 37%. For this, the efficiency factor ought to be 3.7%.

“How do we achieve that efficiency needed to utilise investments? Firstly fight corruption and second, reward those who will invest,” he said. Laying emphasis on this would ensure that the country could overtake China and would be in a position to challenge the United States for the number one position in the next 50 years.

He demanded that P.V. Narasimha Rao be given the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award of the country, for the reforms that were introduced during his tenure. “We have not improved on the reforms that Narasimha Rao with former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister in his Cabinet implemented,” he said.