Pakistan

SC seeks record of written off loans

The SC sought the details of people who got their loans written off in the duration between 1971 and 2009.

Express June 18, 2010

The Supreme Court sought the details of people who got their loans written off in the duration between 1971 and 2009.

The total loans taken during the time-frame amount to Rs256 billion rupees.

A three member bench of Supreme Court headed by Chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad chaudry heard the case. The Chief Justice remarked that the apex court wants to hear the case as it involves public money.

Earlier, Supreme Court had ordered State Bank to provide details of those who got loans during the time-frame between 1971 and 2009 and later got them written off.

The state bank of Pakistan counsel was to submit details of the loans that were written off to the Supreme Court.

However, the report could not be furnished as the SBP counsel was stated to be unwell.

The court also directed State Bank to provide details of all the loan cases being heard by the banking courts. The total amount waived off as loans from 1971 to 1996 is Rs37 billion rupees while Rs68.7 billion loans were waived off from 1997 to 2009.

The Supreme Court has adjourned the hearing till August 2.

COMMENTS (2)

Meekal Ahmed | 14 years ago | Reply It is not as simple as that. Some loan right-off's can be for genuine reasons where a businesss entity fails for reasons beyond the control of the people running it and despite their best efforts to salvage it. But I suspect the bulk of the write-off's are politically driven. One of Pakistan's biggest defaulters is the Prime Minister in-waiting Mr. Nawaz Sharif. Make an example of him as we want to make an example of Mr. Zardari.

Syed A. Mateen | 14 years ago | Reply People of Pakistan are looking towards Supreme Court of Pakistan and more particularly towards the Chief Justice of Pakistan as what policy he and the other honourbale judges are going to devise to bring the culture of corruption to a complete halt. No one, whether dead or alive, should be spared in looting and plundering the money of the country. People who have taken loans from various banks and then got their loans written off on one pretext or the other should not be spared at any cost. The properties (including moveable and immovable assets) of such people and their spouses should be attached after through investigations and should be sold in the open market so that money should be recovered from the looters and plunders. It is a sheer negligence on the part of the governments which ruled the country from 1971 onwards that instead of recovering money from the defaulters, the governments did not gave a serious thought and waived off the loans due to political or other pressures. Once the money is recovered it should be utilized to repay the loans of IMF or the World Bank so that Pakistan should come out from the debt trap. We must learn how to stand on our own feet. Collateral does not mean that one should stand free from an encumbrance. A person, company or organization who took loan to complete certain project should not roam free without repaying the loans. I would also suggest that Supreme Court should also take stern action against those people who write off the loans of cheaters and plunders. They should be put behind the bars as they are equally responsible of doing financial damage to the country by exercising and abusing their authority while such people were in power. These people should be asked as how much percentage of money they got from the borrowers to write off the loans of the banks.

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