Guwahati: The Assam State Cooperative and Rural Development (ASCARD) Bank on Wednesday received a mandate to swiftly recover all debts from borrowers who were in arrears.
The Gauhati High Court ordered the bank to reclaim money from those customers who had taken loans totaling more than Rs 10 lakhs after taking note of the bank’s underlying financial irregularities.
The high court ordered the bank authorities to make every effort to collect the money. The government attorney has also requested that the bank give a list of all of its clients who have taken out loans from it.
The Gauhati High Court has ordered the Chief Executive Officer of the ASCARD Bank to submit the list of loan defaulters.
Moreover, the bank authorities must provide information pertaining to loan recovery by January 24 of the following year.
It should be noted that the Gauhati High Court ordered the seizure of all ASCARD Bank transactional documents in June of this year.
The director-general of police (DGP) was ordered by the high court to seize all documents pertaining to bank financial transactions.
The injunction was issued as a result of the bank’s employees being paid late for several months.
The DGP of Assam police has been instructed to seize documents from the main office of the ASCARD bank in Guwahati’s Ulubari as well as 28 other branches across the state.
According to reports, the bank’s employees filed a high court petition after their outstanding debts went unpaid for several months.
Meanwhile, the bank’s management disclosed that it only had Rs 21 lakhs in funds in a statement to the court.
The ASCARD bank’s top executives presented this to the court, and the Gauhati High Court subsequently ordered the seizure of all of the bank’s transactional paperwork and instructed the DGP to start legal action.