SC adjourns hearing in plea seeking modification of March 23 moratorium judgement

New Delhi [India], July 2 : The Supreme Court on Friday adjourned the petition filed by lawyer Vishal Tiwari, seeking a direction to allow his plea and modified the SC's March 23, 2021 judgment and issue orders that the period of declaring any account as Non-performing Assets (NPA) shall be reckoned from the date of the judgement pronounced.
A bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Dr Dhananjaya Y Chandrahud adjourned the hearing for a week.
"Let us have it (the hearing in the case) next week," Justice Dr Chandrachud said.
The Supreme Court adjourned the matter for a week, as the petitioner-cum-lawyer, Tiwari, had circulated his letter stating that "the matter be adjourned, as his father died on June 25, and thereby he is having a difficulty and requests for an adjournment of two weeks."
Keeping in view the fact that the petitioner had lost his father, the apex court adjourned the matter for a week.
Tiwari, in his petition filed before the apex court, had said the last para of the order said that the accounts which have been considered as standards and were not declared NPA till August 31, 2020, should not be declared NPA, till further orders. It meant that the accounts were required to be considered as standard.
Tiwari said such order of the Court stood as a relief for the commercial borrower, who was under serious financial hardship due to the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 and the subsequent imposition of complete lockdown by the Government of India to restrict the transmission of COVID-19.
Such stay order of non-imposition of NPA by the banks against the borrowers has been vacated through the judgement of March 23, 2021, and therefore the banks in accordance to the law can impose NPA of a standard account if there arises default, Tiwari said.
Generally in legal parlance, the standard account of a borrower can be declared as NPA if there is repayment of 90 days or more, Tiwari, in his petition, said.
Therefore, it needs to be clarified and directed by the apex court that the period of 90 days for the computation of declaration of standard account as NPA should start from the day of the judgement in this batch of petitions, Tiwari in his petition said.
In this regard, the applicant, Tiwari, herein prayed this Court for clarification/ modification and direction of the judgment/order of March 23, 2021, to avoid any practical or sensitive problems which may arise in the future on the issue of classifications.
The second wave of the pandemic came resulting in the partial lockdown in various parts of the country, which had a serious negative impact on the financial condition of the people, Tiwari claimed in his petition.
Thereby he sought a direction from the apex court to allow this application for clarification and modification in the judgment of March 23, and issue necessary directions that the period of declaring any account as NPA shall be reckoned from the date of the above Judgement pronounced.