Four years after the Supreme Court first directed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to disclose a list of India’s wilful defaulters, the central bank has finally complied.

In response to a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by The Wire in May 2019, the RBI has released a list of 30 major wilful defaulters.

For over ten years, the RBI has denied RTI applicants this information arguing that it would be against the economic interests of the country and its ‘fiduciary relationship’ with the banks disallows it from doing so.

While the Central bank has been reluctant to release this data, individual banks and lenders have always generated information on wilful defaulters in