Debt Recovery Tribunal to be computerised soon: Jaitley

In a bid to fast-track recovery of bad loans by banks, the government is looking to computerise the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) and reduce the number of oral hearing to just two, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said today. "I have suggested to the Department of Financial Services... to consider on a high priority basis the computerisation of the entire procedures of the DRT itself," Jaitley said at the 68th Annual General Meeting of Indian Banks Association here today.

The administration of DRT is not under any judicial authority and it is looked after by the Department of Financial Services in the Finance Ministry. Jaitley said the Sarfaesi Act has worked well but the slow procedure at the DRT level at times can defeat the expeditious provisions available to the lenders in the Act. He further said that all kinds of filings can be done over internet with the computerisation.

"The filing of pleading, the filing of document, the filing of replies would all be done on the net itself, with only a provision for two oral hearings in a defined period of time -- one for an interim order and one for a final order." He also said there have been some concerns about absence of an exit policy in bankruptcy law but soon the draft guidelines will be out on this. "I myself has taken some meetings with the committee which is drafting the law. It is almost in the final stages of the draft and by end of this month, or early next month, the final draft will be out.

I hope it will be placed before Parliament very soon," Jaitley said. He said the draft on resolution of disputes relating to major contracts will also be out soon. "Very soon, hopefully in the course of this very fiscal, that law should see the light of the day," he said.

On Arbitration Law, he said the proposed law provides for fast-track arbitration with a one-member Arbitration Board that will have a mandate to complete the entire process within six months. Talking about bad loans of banks, Jaitley said problems of the steel sector are on account of external factors, where cheap imports are hurting the domestic industry. He also said much progress had been made in the highways sector and the projects are being implemented without major bottlenecks.

"The review of the stalled projects was now being done at the Prime Minister's office level. The number of stalled projects has decreased considerably," he said.