Debar bank loan defaulters from contesting general elections 2024: AIBEA

Hyderabad: All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA) has appealed to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar to debar the bank loan defaulters from contesting the general elections 2024.

In a letter to Rajiv Kumar, a copy of which was e-mailed to UNI on Thursday, AIBEA General Secretary Ch Venkatachalam said 'In the past we have the bitter experience that persons who have borrowed huge amount of loans from the Banks and have defaulted and not repaid the loans had contested the elections and some even won the elections to become Members of Parliament.'

'From All India Bank Employees’ Association we have been demanding that the RBI Act should be amended to enable the list of such loan defaulters to be publicly published by the RBI. We have also been demanding that stern action should be taken against such huge loan defaulters and that deliberate default should be termed as criminal offence instead of a civil suit against them,' Venkatachalam said.

He said because of such huge bad loans, which are written off year after year, the Banks are incurring huge drop in their profits.

Already many defaulters are able to get out of their huge loan liabilities with the help of the present Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 where under huge defaulted loans are auctioned and sold to another corporate/business entity for very low value.

The AIBEA General Secretary said 'It is a matter of great concern that availing huge loans from the Banks, turning them bad as non-performing assets, involving the banks into litigations and finally escaping from repayment has become an exquisite art at the hands of many business and corporate entities who indulge in the same without any qualm of conscience. Such people have become a parasite to the economy and banking system.'

'It will be in fitness of things that such persons who avail such huge loans from the Banks and default in repayment should be debarred from contesting the elections.

In view of the above, we demand that the Election Commission should issue a direction that candidates who file nominations should be asked to disclose the details of bank loans defaults, if any, and their candidacy should be declared invalid, Venkatachalam said.