Not Bankable
Over the past few days, newspapers here have been full of reports on agents hired by banks and financial institutions employing extra-legal and even blatantly illegal means to recover loans and credit card payments from defaulters. The reports, triggered by the suicide of one person who was being hounded by agents for missing out on a couple of installment payments of a loan he had taken from the State Bank of India, have detailed the modus operandi of the 'recovery agents' and how the banks not only wink at the illegal acts committed by these agents, but even encourage them to do so. Shockingly, it is not only private and multinational banks that break the law; even nationalized banks are equally guilty on this count. Banks and financial institutions cannot plead ignorance that recovery agents threaten, intimidate and verbally and physically abuse not only defaulters, but also their family members. Cases of defaulters or their children being abducted and confined have also appeared. This is not to say that defaulters should be allowed to go scot-free. No way. But there exists a legal mechanism for recovering loans. This mechanism, like the overall justice delivery system, may be slow. But banks and their agents cannot take this excuse to take the law in to their own hands. If they're allowed to do so. What's stopping the family of a murder victimfrom killing the murderers?