National

PIL on loan waiver dismissed as withdrawn

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed as withdrawn a public interest litigation petition challenging the budget proposal to waive Rs. 60,000-crore farm loans.

Advocate Manohar Lal Sharma submitted before a Bench consisting of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice R.V. Raveendran that subsequent to the filing of his PIL, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram clarified that the waiver scheme would also cover farmers who had taken loans from banks other than nationalised banks. He said this should be extended to all those farmers who had taken loans from private moneylenders also.

The Chief Justice told counsel: “In such matters, the government must have some statistics. How can you say that the policy is bad? If you have any scheme [for farmers], you give it to the government. This court cannot issue a direction to the government one way or the other.”

When counsel said he would withdraw the petition, the court dismissed it as withdrawn.

The PIL had sought a direction to the Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of India to submit a list of banks and the loan amounts due to them.

It contended that that the write-off was limited to farmers who had taken loans from nationalised banks.

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