United Bank to 'name and shame' wilful defaulters

State-owned United Bank of India (UBI) will soon embark upon a process to 'name and shame' its wilful defaulters as part of its effort to recover dues.

"Since the Supreme court has recently permitted banks to name and shame wilful defaulters. Now the bank would initiate process," UBI Executive Director Deepak Narang told PTI.

As part of this effort, the bank will publish photographs of defaulters and other details in newspapers and at notice boards of bank branches. If declared a wilful defaulter, the person would not be able to borrow in future and lose Director-level positions in companies.

The Kolkata-based lender was the first PSU lender to initiate the process by declaring Vijay Mallya and three other directors of the grounded Kingfisher Airlines as wilful defaulters.

The bank had served a notice asking Mallya and three other directors of Kingfisher Airlines to appear before its grievance panel on July 9.

Kingfisher Airlines approached the Kolkata High Court seeking permission for representation by a lawyer in the proceedings of the Grievance Redressal Commission of the bank. On July 10, Justice Dipankar Dutta of the High Court had rejected Kingfisher Airlines' plea to send an external legal practitioner.

The hearing on the matter is scheduled for July 21, before the division bench of the Kolkata High Court.

The bank's exposure to Kingfisher Airlines was around Rs 350 crore as part of consortium lead by State Bank of India.

The consortium of 17 banks, has an outstanding debt of about Rs 4,022 crore from the now-grounded carrier and outside the consortium, the bank gave about Rs 60 crore loan for Pre-Delivery Payment.

As part of the recovery process, banks in February last year decided to sell a portion of the collateral with them, including shares of group companies United Spirits Ltd and Mangalore Chemicals & Fertilizers Ltd, Mallya's Goa villa, Kingfisher House in Mumbai and the Kingfisher brand, which was valued at over Rs 4,000 crore at the time it was pledged.