PIL In Supreme Court Seeks Relief Packages For Small Scale Businesses In Wake Of Covid Crisis

  • Shruti Kakkar
  • 04:41 PM, 15 Apr 2021

Read Time: 05 minutes

A PIL has been filed in Supreme Court by a registered MSME company seeking directions to the Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”) for immediate incentive relief packages to commercial borrowers attached with small scale businesses in wake of the ongoing pandemic situation.

The plea drawn by Vishal Tiwari & filed by AOR Abhigya also seeks for directing the RBI & banks to desist from imposing the Non Performing Assets (NPA) norms for MSME units for a period of two years. 

The RBI through its official statements dated 07.04.20201 held that there would be no relief of moratorium although knowing the fact of the presence of second wave & RBI also hasn't shown any indication as to future course of action pertaining to COVID 19 & its impact. The Central Bank of this country has therefore reluctantly ignored the real situation & the condition of the MSME industry. Non action & reluctance of the Respondents by not providing any relief package & guidelines for the commercial borrowers has actually resulted in serious violation of Fundamental Rights to livelihood & right to dignity which flows under Article 21 of the Constitution of India”, the plea states.

The plea has been filed on the following grounds:

  • Non action & reluctance on the part of RBI by not having definite indication for the future course of action under the light of the second wave of COVID 19 has actually resulted in the violation of the right to livelihood & such also violates the right to dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution.
  • Due to lack of guideline & interim relief measures by RBI the commercial borrowers re agin under the threat & verbal torture of paying of the defaults that occurred due to less revenue in the business. The banking institutions have started to impose mental & verbal pressure with the threat of initiating recovery proceedings & declaring the account as NPA. Therefore, there is no check on the actions of the banking institutions by RBI. 
  • The earlier packages of resolution plan & the Restructuring given by RBI through circular dated 06.08.2020 & the Kamath Committee Report on it were not implemented by the banks in its letter & spirit to the petitioner.

Reliance has been placed on the Supreme Court judgement WP No 945 of 2020 in view of which the accounts which were not declared NPA till 31.08.2020 were not to be declared as NPA till further orders. 

Case Title: Amaltas Apparel & Accessories Pvt Ltd V. Union of India & Anr