Former Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Thursday said banks should show loans taken by fugitives Vijay Mallya, Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi as ‘outstanding loans’ in their account books instead of writing them off.
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“The only way to undo the monumental error is for RBI to direct the banks concerned to reverse the entries and continue to show the unrecovered loans from the fugitives as ‘outstanding loans’ on their books and take steps to recover them,” said Mr. Chidambaram in a series of tweets.
“The debate on waiver or write-off is academic. People who are mighty pleased are Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya! Rules are made by human beings. If a rule can be made, it can be unmade too,” he added.
On Wednesday, when Congress leaders including Rahul Gandhi had talked about the Narendra Modi government ‘waiving off’ loans of the country’s top 50 defaulters, BJP leaders had urged Mr. Gandhi to take tuitions from Mr. Chidambaram to know the difference between “waive off” and “write off,” an accounting term.
