Banks ‘can recover dues’ from account

Dismissing a writ petition filed by a retired Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) employee seeking the court direction to restrain a nationalised bank from recovering the agricultural loan dues from his monthly pension deposited in an SB account in the same bank, Justice M Venugopal said the “the respondent bank has rightly resorted to the measure of recovering the due amounts from the SB account of the petitioner as per the mandate given by him at the time of availing the loan.” 

“Therefore, the action of the respondent cannot be found fault with,” the judge said. The writ petitioner and his son had availed themselves of the agricultural loan of Rs 75,000 jointly in October 2012 on execution of a promissory note agreeing to repay it in ten equated monthly instalments from April 2015 after the holiday period of two years.  However, they failed to discharge their loan despite several reminders. The judge said it is the duty of the petitioner and his son to repay the loan instalments.