The Madras High Court Bench here on Friday reserved its judgement on a public interest litigation petition filed against the State Government’s decision to extend waiver of crop loans obtained from cooperative banks only to 16.94 lakh small and marginal farmers and not to the 3.01 lakh other medium and large farmers.
A Division Bench of Justices S. Nagamuthu and M.V. Muralidaran deferred their verdict after hearing Advocate General R. Muthukumaraswamy who produced government files related to the decision making process which disclosed that the Chief Minister had taken the decision to waive loans despite a dissenting note by the Finance Secretary.
However, the judges said the decision taken by the Chief Minister should have been applied uniformly to all farmers who had obtained loans from cooperative banks without any discrimination on the basis of the extent of their land holdings since all of them were affected by drought and consequent loss of harvest.
The Bench also took on file a counter affidavit filed by the Joint Registrar of Cooperative Societies V. Periyasamy stating that only small and marginal farmers were entitled for ‘debt waiver’ and that other farmers could only be given ‘debt relief’ by announcing One Time Settlement (OTS) schemes, under which they could get a rebate of 25 per cent of eligible amount on the condition that they pay the the balance 75 per cent.
He pointed out that even National South Indian River Interlinking Agriculturist Association, which had filed a PIL petition, sought only debt relief and not debt waiver despite challenging a G.O., issued on June 28 listing the guidelines to be followed for waiver scheme.
