Court seeks info on loan write-off

The High Court has sought a list of companies, organisations and individuals whose bank loans have been written off till December 31 last year.

The court ordered the governor of Bangladesh Bank to submit the list within 30 days.

The HC also asked whether those companies, organisations and individuals were given any new loans or not, Deputy Attorney General SM Moniruzzaman told The Daily Star.

He said the HC bench of Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury and Justice Md Iqbal Kabir passed the order on Tuesday on a suo moto (on its own) move, following a report published in a newspaper on February 26.

The HC also issued a rule asking the secretaries to the ministries of finance and law and the BB governor to explain why the Bank Companies Act 1991 provision that empowers the central bank to exempt anybody from loans should not be declared unconstitutional, DAG Moniruzzaman added.

According to Bangladesh Bank data, banks' total written-off loans increased to over Tk 42,674 crore as of September 30 from Tk 42,322 crore as of June 30, 2016.

The amount of written-off loans was Tk 41,437 crore as of March 31, 2016 and Tk 41,237 crore as of December 31, 2015.

Bankers said the tendency to write-off loans increase when the defaulted loans rise as banks want to clean their balance sheets.