Big defaulters spend crores of taka to evade repayment: Supreme Court

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court (SC) has expressed anger over big loan defaulters spending hundreds of crores of taka to stop the repayment procedures while the poor need to go to jail for failing to pay back their instalments.

The Appellate Division, headed by Chief Justice Hasan Foez Siddique, made the remarks while hearing an appeal filed by a Narayanganj-based businessman objecting to repay his loans to Sonali Bank on Monday.

The court was informed that a Tk32 crore loan was taken from Sonali Bank's Motijheel branch by Fazlur Rahman and Co in 1997. After the death of the company head Fazlur Rahman in 2017, Sonali Bank filed a case with the court for the repayment of the loan. With added interest, the loan amount increased to around Tk150 crore.

Expressing dissatisfaction over the repayment of only Tk5 lakh against Tk150 crore in 26 years, the Appellate Division dismissed the petition and ordered the full repayment of the loan.

Earlier in February this year, Sonali Bank also filed a case in the money loan court against Keya Cosmetics Ltd and its directors for the recovery of defaulted loans amounting to over Tk20 crore.

According to Supreme Court sources, some 72,000 loan default cases are pending with various courts in the country as of December 2022, which involve around Tk1.4 lakh crore. Around 3,800 of the cases involve loan defaults of Tk100cr or more, and more than half of these cases have been pending for at least five years.

On the other hand, 7,532 cases were disposed of in the last two years, of which 2,877 involved defaults of Tk50,000-Tk2 lakh loan each. A number of other cases even involved less than Tk50,000.

And in contrast to the snail's pace in the trial of large default loan cases, 80% of small default loan cases — filed over loan defaults of less than Tk2 lakh — are disposed of within 2-3 years.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal in January this year told parliament that the top 20 defaulters in Bangladesh owe Tk16,587.92 crore to various lenders, with CLC Power Company Limited, a concern of Maisha Group, founded by late Awami League lawmaker Aslamul Haque, being the biggest defaulter with Tk1,649.44 crore.

The finance minister also informed parliament that the total number of defaulters in the country was 7,86,065 as of November 2022.