- (1.) The petitioners' have established an education institution and, for this purpose, the petitioner no.1 has availed certain credit facilities from the respondent-banks through multiple banking arrangement, namely, from Punjab and Sind Bank, Allahabad Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce and Dena Bank. Credit facilities was sanctioned by the respondent-banks by way of hypothecation charge on the current assets, other fixed assets in favour of the banks. Credit facilities so granted was also secured by way of equitable mortgage of immovable properties. The credit facilities so sanctioned by the banks have been utilized for the development of the University and other colleges. On account of expansion of their project, certain cash flow problems arose for petitioner no.1 presumably on account of expenses incurred towards infrastructure development. The petitioner no.1, accordingly, could not repay the loan amount as per the schedule of payments. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) framed certain guidelines to protect the interest of the banks where a loan has been taken by a person from various banks. The RBI has issued certain guidelines permitting financial institutions, namely, that the lenders should come together and formulate and sign an agreement incorporating the broad rules for the functioning of the Joint Lenders Forum (JLF). This forum would work for the interest of all the banks. As per the RBI guidelines dated 26th February, 2014, before a loan account could turn into an NPA, the banks were required to identify incipient stress in the account by creating three sub-categories under the Special Mention Account (SMA), namely:- JUDGEMENT_275_LAWS(ALL)12_2014_1.html
(2.) The banks were advised that as soon as account is reported in any of the categories they should mandatorily form a Committee to be called Joint Lenders Forum and this forum would explore various options to resolve the stress in the account. The forum was required to rectify the stress and if it found that the existing promoters were not in a position to bring in any additional money or to take any measures to regularise the account, would explore the possibility of getting other equity/strategic investors to the company in consultation with the borrower or the forum would also consider the possibility of restructuring the account if a prima facie viable case was made out and where there was no diversion of funds, fraud or malfeasance on the part of the borrower. Paragraph 3(c) of the guidelines of 26th February, 2014 further indicated that the aforesaid two options of rectification and restructuring was not possible or feasible only then due recovery process would be resorted to.
(3.) Based on this guidelines, a Joint Lenders Forum meeting was held on 11th June, 2014 and the forum resolved that since the account of Punjab and Sind Bank was identified as a potential NPA due to non-payment of interest and installments, the forum directed the petitioner no.1 to pay the critical amount towards interest between 15th June, 2014 to 25th June, 2014 and the critical amount of installment by 29th June, 2014 before considering the request for rescheduling the payment structure. It is alleged that the said critical amount towards interest and installement was paid by the petitioner no.1.;