The Supreme Court on 2 July 2021 adjourned the petition filed by Advocate Vishal Tiwari, seeking a direction to allow his plea and modified the Supreme Court's 23 March 2021 judgment and issue orders that the period of declaring any account as Non-performing Assets (NPA) shall be reckoned from the date of the judgement pronounced. A bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Dr. Dhananjaya Y. Chandrahud adjourned the hearing for a week.
Advocate Tiwari, in his petition filed before the apex court, had said the last para of the order said that the accounts which have been considered as standards and were not declared NPA till 31 August 2020, should not be declared NPA, till further orders. It meant that the accounts were required to be considered as standard.
Generally, in legal parlance, the standard account of a borrower can be declared as NPA if there is repayment of 90 days or more, Advocate Tiwari, in his petition, said. Therefore, it needs to be clarified and directed by the apex court that the period of 90 days for the computation of declaration of standard account as NPA should start from the day of the judgement in this batch of petitions, Tiwari in his petition said. In this regard, the applicant, Tiwari, herein prayed to this Court for clarification/ modification and direction of the judgment of 23 March 2021, to avoid any practical or sensitive problems which may arise in the future on the issue of classifications.
The Apex court vacated the stay on declaration of loan accounts as Non-performing assets. An application seeking clarification as to the period of declaring any account NPA shall be calculated from the date of judgement passed on 23 March 2021. The court while disposing of the petitions through judgement dated 23 March 2021, opined that there shall not be any charge of interest on interest/ compound interest/ penal interest for the period during the moratorium from any borrower and whatever amount is recovered by interest on interest/ compound interest/ penal interest for the period of moratorium must be refunded. However, in view of the applicant, it is to be clarified and declared that the period of 90 days for the computation of declaration of standard account as NPA should start from the day of judgement of 23 March 2021.
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