Big Loan Defaulters Spending Crores to Stop Repayment: SC

The Supreme Court's Appellate Division (SC) has voiced its displeasure with large loan defaulters spending hundreds of billions of taka to halt the repayment processes while the poor must serve jail time for not repaying their debts.

On Monday, July 31, the Appellate Division, presided over by Chief Justice Hasan Foez Siddique, made the comments while deliberating an appeal brought by a merchant from Narayanganj who had objected to repaying his loans to Sonali Bank.

The court was informed that in 1997, Fazlur Rahman and Co. obtained a Tk32 crore loan from the Sonali Bank's Motijheel branch. 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. The loan amount rose to almost Tk150 crore with interest. 

The Appellate Division expressed its displeasure that just Tk 5 lakh—or 0.05%—of the original Tk 150 crore—had been returned after 26 years. 

The petition was denied by the Appellate Division, which also mandated debt payback.

Sonali Bank also filed a lawsuit at the money loan court in February of this year against Keya Cosmetics Ltd. and its directors to collect defaulted debts totaling more than Tk20 crore.