Supreme Court rejects new directives for NPAs

The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to pass any direction to the government or the public sector banks to recover the huge non-performing assets (NPAs), stating that there were enough laws to deal with the issue.

The public interest petition was moved by an organisation, Common Cause, 12 years ago seeking several directions from the court to the central authorities as the NPA had spiralled to more than Rs 1 lakh crore. Disposing of the petition, the court hoped that the central government would make the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) tackle the problem.

The judgment delivered by Justice A K Patnaik said: “We hope that the centre make SFIO an independent agency to deal with NPAs and reduce it.”

The court also observed that whether such laws are implemented efficiently and effectively is for the legislature and the Centre to decide and courts cannot interfere in it,” the bench said while disposing the PIL.

It further noted that a committee, headed by a Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, was already looking into the issue and it would come out with certain schemes to solve the problem.