ANU BHALLA Vs. DISTRICT MAGISTRATE, PATHANKOT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present petition has been filed by the petitioners/principal borrowers who had availed two credit facilities from Respondent No. 2 - a Non Banking Financial Company and are aggrieved of the inaction of the respondent No. 2 in considering their application for grant of extension in time, for making the repayment of the balance settlement amount in terms of One Time Settlement (OTS) dated 02.01.2019 (AnnexureP-11) entered between the petitioners and respondent No. 2.

(2.) In brief, the pleaded case of petitioners, who are husband and wife, is that they had availed two Term Loans (Loan Against Property) from Respondent No. 2 on 12.08.2015. The first Term Loan was sanctioned for Rs.1.45 Crore (Annexure P-1) in the shape of Loan Against Property (LAP) against the security of a residential house and was repayable in a tenure of15 years with Equated Monthly Instalment (EMI) of Rs.2,07,036/-. The second Term Loan was availed for Rs. 58' Lakhs, against the same security of the said residential house, (mortgaged in both the accounts) which was to be repaid in a tenure of 30 years with Equated Monthly Instalment of Rs.75,284/-.

(3.) The petitioners are stated to be the founder members of AmanBhalla Foundation, which has set up educational institutions, imparting education in the field of Polytechnic, Engineering, Nursing, Teachers training, Hotel Management etc. at Pathankot (Punjab). Government of India, had introduced Post Matric Scholarship Scheme, pursuant to which educational institutions, would not charge tuition fee from the students of SC/ST/OBC/BC category, which was to be then reimbursed by the State Government, after having received the same from the Centre Government. The petitioners contend that pursuant to the said scheme, various students belonging to SC/ST/OBC/BC category take admission for which their Institutes do not charge tuition fee, and for such reimbursement the Institute is dependant upon the State Government. The petitioners submit that being a part of management of the Institute, the income of the petitioners was directly dependant upon the satisfactory running of the Institutes. Difficulty arose, when on account of the delay in receiving the reimbursement under the aforesaid scheme from the State Government, it faced financial constraints, due to which they could not repay the instalments of the aforesaid loans on time, which led Respondent No. 2 to declaring both the loan accounts as Non Performing Asset (NPA) by 01.01.2018.