It looks as if some banks in India consider themselves above the law. In spite of a Supreme Court order to the contrary, banks such as the ICICI Bank continue to employ private agencies for debt recovery, which in turn employ goons and other anti-social elements to intimidate the defaulters and make them cough up the money. Recently, in Hyderabad, this has resulted in the tragic death of a government employee after he was allegedly held in confinement by debt recovery agents who worked for a loan recovery agency which had a tie up with ICICI Bank. The bank and the agency of course deny any wrong doing on their part.

Failure by the police to control these agencies has resulted in the banks blatantly ignoring the Supreme Court oder, which expressly forbids hiring goons and using force to recover defaulted loans. While the defaulter is at fault for not paying up on time the bank should not resort to illegal means to recover the money. Given India’s glacial judicial system where it takes years for a case to be resolved it is no wonder then that private banks are resorting to force and coercion to get back their money. However, this should be condemned and prevented as no bank can and should consider themselves above the law. If not anything this will lead to the strengthening of goons who might resort to other illegal activities given their patronage and protection by the banks.

The police should make sure that the guilty parties are brought to justice in the above case and make sure that the said bank/agency and others do not resort to using the same tactics again. Bank customers should also put pressure on their bank when they hear about such cases to desist from using such unlawful means. After all, the one thing these banks fear is bad publicity and that is a power bank customers can use to influence their banks to mend their ways.