Letter to BS: An overzealous CBI could cramp decision-making in banks

Apropos “The fear factor” (May 5), I agree with your contention that over-vigilance is likely to have debilitating impact on decision-making by banks in India. While not wanting to comment on individual cases, I can say, based on my experience as a director on the board of a public sector bank (PSB), it was an accepted practice in the period mentioned for PSBs to put up proposals to their boards to advance fresh loans/ad hoc loans to big borrowers who had continuously defaulted on repayments and whose financial positions had significantly deteriorated. In many cases this was seen in steel,