SC refuses to hear PIL on Rs 60,000 cr farm loan waiver scheme

SC refuses to hear PIL on Rs 60,000 cr farm loan waiver scheme The Supreme Court refused to hear a petition questioning the Rs 60,000 crore loan waiver scheme for farm debt proposed by the government in Budget 2008-09. A bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan on Monday declined to dwell on the issue after the petitioner said Finance Minister P Chidambaram had reportedly clarified that the scheme would also cover farmers who had taken loans from banks other than nationalised banks. Advocate M L Sharma, who had filed the PIL, had questioned the basis on which the government arrived at the figure of Rs 60,000 crore while quantifying farm debt. He had sought a direction to the Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of India to place a list of banks and the unpaid loan amount due to them from farmers. Contending that the loan write-off was limited to such farmers who had taken loans from nationalised banks, the PIL had sought the extension of the loan waiver scheme to all farmers, including those who had taken a loan from private money lenders or private banks. When the advocate said that private money lenders should also be brought under the ambit of the scheme, the Bench, also comprising Justice R V Raveendran, said it was not possible to pass such directions. The PIL had demanded that politicians should be kept out of distribution of fund under the scheme. The petitioner had said that according to the RBI, prior to 29th February, 2008, no nationalised bank had any dead or sick agricultural loan in its balance sheets.

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