New Delhi: Asian Colour Coated Ispat Ltd (ACCIL) on Monday moved Delhi high court seeking a direction to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to consider its loan default of over Rs3,900 crore under the revised “beneficiary scheme” notified by RBI on 12 February.
P. Chidambaram appearing for ACCIL also sought publication of a so-called second list of loan defaulters made by RBI.
“The list was never made public. I knew only because of media reports,” he said.
The 12 February circular issued by RBI had withdrawn all existing frameworks for addressing stressed assets, including corporate debt restructuring scheme, flexible structuring of long-term project loans or 5/25 scheme, strategic debt restructuring scheme (SDR), and scheme for sustainable structuring of stressed assets (S4A).
This revised framework was applicable to all accounts, including such accounts where any of the schemes had been invoked but not yet implemented.
The scheme, however, was made inapplicable to the 28 accounts mentioned in the so-called second list by RBI.
The revised framework mandated a time period of 180 days to arrive at a resolution plan for loans that are larger than Rs2,000 crore but less than Rs5,000 crore. If a resolution plan is not implemented within this time, the account would be addressed as per the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.
Chidambaram argued that the exclusion of companies in the so-called second list from the revised framework was arbitrary.
Counsel appearing for SBI informed the court that several debt restructuring proposals had already been rejected by a Joint Lenders Forum for the debtor as they were not viable.
State Bank of India’s plea for initiating an insolvency proceedings against ACCIL over a Rs3,900 crore default is also pending before the National Company Law Tribunal.
The matter would be next heard on 17 May.