Saturday, August 9, 2014

Syndicate Bank scam :Bhushan shocker: ₹40,000 crore, 51 lenders at risk




Banks want agency to oversee operations; lenders’ consortium to meet soon
With the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arresting Neeraj Singhal, Vice-Chairman of Bhushan Steel, in connection with the alleged Syndicate Bank bribery case, banks are considering engaging the services of a management agency to look after the day-to-day operations of the company to ensure that their ₹40,000-crore loan exposure is not jeopardised.
Fifty-one banks have given loans to the company as part of two lenders’ consortiums – the term loan consortium is led by Punjab National Bank while the working capital consortium is led by State Bank of India.
Lenders’ meet
Arundhati Bhattacharya, SBI Chairman, said: “We will be calling a consortium meeting shortly. The suggestions that we (SBI) have made, and which have been accepted by the banks that we have talked to, is that we will try to bring in a management agency, which will oversee the day-to-day running of the unit.”
At a press meet to announce SBI’s financial results, she said the Bhushan Steel loan was a standard asset. The exposure of India’s largest bank is around ₹6,000 crore, including external commercial borrowing.
‘Good asset’
“This (Bhushan Steel) is a very good quality asset. It is currently running properly. We don’t want, therefore, for it to get into any kind of trouble and create trouble for our exposure.”
Bhushan Steel is India’s third-largest secondary steel producer, with a production capacity of about two million tonnes per annum.
“If this (proposal to engage a management agency) receives the consortium lenders’ approval, then we will definitely be taking this up with the company’s board to see that we put in place such an agency,” said Bhattacharya.
She referred to an earlier instance where the company complied with lenders’ stipulations. When there was an accident in one of the company’s plants, the consortium lenders had wanted it to appoint a safety adviser and take the safety steps recommended by the adviser.
“So, even in this case, I don’t really think that the borrower will have any objections and we would like to put in place a management agency to ensure that the day-to-day transactions or operations are not interrupted,” said the SBI chief.
On Thursday, the CBI arrested Neeraj Singhal, Vice-Chairman and MD of Bhushan Steel, in connection with the Syndicate Bank bribery case. Earlier Sudhir Kumar Jain, Chairman and Managing Director of the bank, was suspended.
On August 2, the agency registered two cases against the Syndicate Bank CMD and 11 other private persons, including the CMD and directors of two private firms based in Delhi, in a bribery case, under sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, and for criminal conspiracy.
(This article was published on August 8, 2014)

Bhushan Steel bribery case highlights need for bankruptcy law, management exit

Bhushan Steel bribery case highlights need for bankruptcy law, management exit
First Biz  Jagannathan 9 AUG 2014

The NDA government is planning to change labour laws to make it easier for companies to hire labour on more flexible terms. The argument is that if companies cannot fire labour, they won’t hire either – and this fact has been demonstrated by the very slow growth in organised sector employment over the last two decades.
However, an important adjunct to more flexible labour laws is even more flexible laws on management change. If the inability to hire and fire labour is hampering jobs growth, the inability to chop and change managements is hampering corporate accountability and competence. It is, in fact, encouraging crony capitalism. The lack of a quick and effective law for management exits needlessly traps capital in the wrong businesses. This too prevents the creation of new jobs as capital is endlessly locked up in bad businesses, sometimes run by bad promoters.
It was the inability, or unwillingness, of bankers to pull the plug, and/or  change management at Kingfisher Airlines that has now left them stuck with Rs 7,000 crore of bad loans. In fact, if they had chucked Vijay Mallya out and revamped the management some time in 2010 or even 2011, they might well have not only saved Kingfisher but Mallya’s liquor empire as well. Now, banks are busy selling his collateral to recover their cash.
Exhibit Two in the argument making management change easier is the bribery case involving Bhushan Steel. In this case, a nationalised bank’s Chairman and Managing Director (Syndicate Bank’s SK Jain) is in the dock for allegedly accepting a bribe for going easy on the company’s loans. It has also led to the arrest of Bhushan’s Managing Director Neeraj Singhal.
With Rs 40,000 crore of bank loans at risk involving 51 banks, State Bank of India Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya said yesterday (8 August) that they were looking for an agency to monitor the loan. SBI, as lead banker to Bhushan Steel, has an exposure of Rs 6,000 crore.
As yet, the loan hasn’t gone bad, and the company’s performance is said to be satisfactory. But if this is truly the case, one wonders why anyone needed to be bribed at all. Clearly, at the very least, a forensic audit is required of the company’s operations and accounts.
At this stage, the bankers can at best insist on planting their own nominee on the company’s board. It is only after the loans formally go bad and are declared non-performing assets (NPAs) that they can try and change the management.
However, this leaves too much to chance. In a market economy, the sense that something may be wrong can be a self-fulfilling proposition, and banks or regulators should have the option of making temporary changes in management when things appear to go wrong so that they can arrest any attempt to cover up wrongdoing. They can also assure investors that things are under control. The old management needs to be shown the door till it is clear that they did no wrong.
There are three reasons why we need a strong law to allow bankers (or a group of minority investors or the regulators) to appoint a new boss or independent directors in companies where public interest is at stake.
First, regardless of whether their loans are good or likely to turn problematic, banks need to have the right to make a pre-emptive strike on management before the operations actually get into a tailspin. Once a company’s operations start winding down, failure is self-propelling for credit starts drying up and the stock starts tanking. Change of management (even a temporary change) is needed to assure all lenders and shareholders that corrective steps are being taken and the operations of the company will not be affected.
Second, bankers usually have a fair idea about how a company is faring based on account statements and audit reports – and their own understanding of how the industry itself is faring. But public sector banks, with their dilatory systems and lack of accountability, are likely to be more vulnerable to bribery and hanky-panky for the simple reason that bankers have short tenures and keep getting transferred. The system of rewards and penalties for performance and non-performance is weaker in public sector banks. The Satyam Computers fraud case shows that several banks, which allegedly held the company’s non-existent cash and bank balances, had no clue that the company had very little actual cash with any of them. Either the bankers knew and kept quiet, or they were too complacent about their borrower. They were wrong. If banks had been more vigilant, the Satyam fraud could have been detected earlier and the management changed. In fact, the management had pledged so much of its own shareholding that it effectively had no shareholding control. But it still did damage.
Third, cronyism thrives primarily through its ability to influence bankers and regulators – of course, with help from politicians and bureaucrats. This calls for a clear separation of public sector banks’ reporting structures from their administrative ministry (in this case, finance). RBI governor Raghuram Rajan said the other day that the government could put all bank shakes in a separate special purpose vehicle so that bankers were insulated from political pressures to lend.
In the case of government-owned institutions, you can’t change the owner, but you can at least prevent the owner from damaging taxpayer assets.
A key measure to end crony capitalism is the enactment of a strong bankruptcy law that also enables lenders and minority shareholders to show bad managements the door.


More than an exit policy for labour, we need an exit policy for management.
 

Kingfisher Airlines mess: CBI begins probe over IDBI Bank’s Rs 900 cr loan


Kingfisher Airlines mess: CBI begins probe over IDBI Bank’s Rs 900 cr loan
FtrstBiz 9 Aug 2014
Years after it emerged that the state-owned lender IDBI Bank gave a flagging Kingfisher Airlines loans amounting to Rs 900 crore despite internal reports advising otherwise, the CBI has reportedly registered a preliminary enquiry against the bank to investigate why it allocated the funds.
According to a CNBC-TV18 report, the investigating agency has registered a preliminary enquiry against the lender to investigate why the money was allocated to the airline despite internal reports in the bank stating it was inadvisable to lend the money.
A report in the DNA said the investigating agency had sent a questionnaire to the bank regarding the allocation of the loans but wasn't satisfied with the replies it received and it is hoping to receive other files pertaining to the case from IDBI Bank after the registration of the preliminary enquiry.
The next stage in the investigation would be the registration of an FIR if any criminality is established during the investigations.
CNN-IBN report in 2011 had highlighted how the internal reports of the IDBI Bank in 2009 had raised questions about the wisdom behind granting loans to the flagging airline.
The report, prepared when Kingfisher Airlines had sought a loan of Rs 150 crore for six months, says: "The company's financial position is unsatisfactory as reflected by substantial gross loss and net loss during FY 09 and accumulated losses, eroded net worth and high debts. As on March 31, 2009, debt levels to the tune of Rs 5665.55 crore indicating a major risk burden on the banking system. Final conclusion, proposal doesn't comply with minimum internal credit rating."
However, despite the report, the loan for the airline was approved and another proposal from the airline seeking a loan of Rs 750 crore was also approved despite an adverse report.
"Since 66 per cent of promoters shareholding are pledged, continuance of promoters in the company needs to be ascertained. High debts, no guarantee of repayment of loans and final conclusion was the same that loan request doesn't comply with minimum internal credit rating," the bank's report had stated.
The CBI is also already probing the loans granted by the State Bank of India to the airline, which has been out of operation since 2012.


Banks' loans to big corporates have been hogging the limelight of late after the CBI arrested state-run Syndicate Bank's chairman and managing director SK Jain for taking Rs 50 lakh bribe to extend credit facilities to private sector companies Bhushan Steel and Prakash Industries.

Friday, August 8, 2014

Lesson to learn from Vijay Mallya’s hubris-driven fall: don’t bet the farm

If there is anyone who demonstrates the true cost of business hubris, Vijay Mallya is Exhibit A.
Fisrt BiZ R Jagannathan  * Aug 2014
IF there is anyone who demonstrates the true cost of business hubris, Vijay Mallya is Exhibit A. He built a great airline, Kingfisher, on the basis of personal vanity, and continued vanity is now shrinking his business from empire to kingdom as Kingfisher’s Rs 7,000 crore dues force him to sell large parts of his better businesses bit by bit.
His creditors are chasing him. The taxman is chasing him. And his own former employees are In today’s newspapers (1 August), Mallya has negative mentions in at least three instances – all related to the original sin of bankrupting the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines. After a year-and-a-half of evading the summons issued by a special court on economic offences in Bangalore, he was forced to turn up yesterday (31 July) to seek bail. He got one. Mallya is accused of not remitting Rs 400 crore of tax deducted at source.
Photographers who came to record the event wereroughed up by unknown persons (though that may not be anything to do with him). And lenders are busy hawking his properties and assets, forcing him to sell larger chunks of his profitable liquor businesses. Flagship United Spirits has already gone to Diageo, control of beer company United Breweries has passed on to Heineken, and Mangalore Chemicals and Fertilizers is likely to be taken over by the Adventz Group though Mallya officially remains in saddle in all these companies.
According to this Business Standard report, Mallya, who has already ceded control of United Breweries to Heineken, may see his 32.86 percent holdings in the company fall further as lenders seek to sell another 3 percent of the shares pledged. Mallya has pledged nearly 26 percent of his holdings in UB, and even after a 3 percent sale, 23 percent of his holdings will remain in hock to the lenders.
The short point is this: in his blind pursuit of a “sexy” hubris-driven business like civil aviation, Vijay Mallya is now about to lose his crown jewels. His is a classic demonstration of management guru Jim Collins’ five-stage process of letting a business slip from success to failure. Only, in his case, Mallya has lost more than just one business. He is losing half his empire.
As I wrote earlier, in How the Mighty Fall, Collins, author of several best-selling books on corporate success and failure (Built to Last, Good to Great), gives five broad reasons why top-performing companies lose their way and collapse to either mediocrity or even bankruptcy.
Of the five reasons, the first two relate to the causes of failure (management hubris, leading to over-reach and expansion beyond the core) and the other three to how managements respond to crisis when things start going wrong (denial of risk, grasping at straws for salvation and capitulation to irrelevance).
In Mallya's case, he has not only managed to qualify on all five counts, but has added several bits of foolishness of his own. Jim Collins will have to add a few chapters when he learns about the Mallya mishaps.
Let's begin with Collins' five reasons.
Hubris: Mallya's Kingfisher foray had all the wrong reasons for entry and staying the course to disaster. He entered the business for the glamour it brought to his portfolio (which is why, in any Kingfisher flight, when Kingfisher was still flying, Mallya talked to you directly on the video), rather from any special understanding of competitive advantage. He wanted to be India's Richard Branson, forgetting the success is not easily copied.
In India, given high fuel prices and related costs, success in aviation depends on reducing costs all the time. In contrast, Mallya ratcheted up his costs wherever he could - from handing out earphones to all passengers to serving high-cost gourmet meals in business class.
When he bought Air Deccan, he failed to see that running a low-cost carrier is different from a full service airline. He made the mistake of calling it Kingfisher Red - another pointer to hubris ("my brandname") - and reduced his full-service brand to the level of a cut-price carrier despite much higher costs.
When Kingfisher was teetering on the brink and it seemed like he would have to sell the shares in his more profitable businesses, Mallya was still pretending the sale was a matter of choice. He told Business Standardtwo years ago: "I am a businessman and my businesses are for sale at the right price."
He said that in the context of his flagship United Spirits, not Kingfisher. In the case of Kingfisher, which has Rs 7,000 crore in accumulated debt and a further Rs 7,000 crore in losses, he missed the bus for getting the right price years ago.
Overreach: Mallya's prime folly, which again flowed from hubris, was overreach. The overreach happened at several levels.
First, he failed to understand the difference between running a business with 25-35 percent margins (booze) and one with 1-2 percent margins, or even losses for long periods of time (aviation). He failed to see his managerial limitations in this new business where he didn't have a clue on how to run it.
As we noted before, in the US, the last 30 years have seen nothing less than 50 airline bankruptcies. In India, we have seen at least 10 failures since aviation was opened up to the private sector in the 1990s. But Mallya did not seem to have noticed any of this. He assumed that since he was so successful in liquor, the airline business should be a breeze.
Trying to run an airline like the liquor business was his first mistake. It was also a case of unrelated diversification.
The second overreach related to his expansion with the acquisition of Air Deccan. Despite the odds, the fact is Mallya did create the best airline brand in Kingfisher. Business passengers were shifting from Air India and Jet in droves to Kingfisher, thanks to Mallya's no-expenses-spared approach to Kingfisher First Class. But when he suddenly decided that he wanted size and scale, he bought Air Deccan at a huge premium. Worse, he named it Kingfisher, too. Do you call both the premium and discount ends of the businesses the same way? It’s like calling the Toyota Corolla as Lexus Classic.
Mallya can be excused for running a lavish Kingfisher, but trying to run a cut-rate carrier like Kingfisher was folly dipped in red ink from day one.
This double overreach-from profitable liquor to an unprofitable airline and even further into a discounting airline-set the stage up beautifully for Mallya's ultimate failure.
Denial of risk: It is one thing to blunder into an unprofitable business, quite another to bet the farm on it. But this is precisely what Mallya had done. He staked almost his entire liquor business to save a sinking airline.
In business you can succeed by doing one of two things: avoid putting all your eggs in one basket (and so spread the risk), or you can put all in one basket (that is, focus on one business and stick to your core competence) and watch the basket like a hawk.
Mallya did neither. He put all his eggs on one flight to disaster - including his shareholdings and personal assets - and failed to focus on what makes an airline succeed.
Today, if Mallya has had to sell his crown jewels to Diageo and Heineken, it is because he was driven by vanity to deny he had blundered with Kingfisher. He thus pledged too much of his liquor business and his personal assets to keep Kingfisher afloat. He threw away his good business to rescue the bad. Now even Kingfisher beer under United Breweries belongs substantially to Heineken.
Did Mallya not understand, at least as late as 2010-11, when everyone knew how the aviation business was going downhill?
Did he not understand the risks involved? Like a gambler who thinks the next throw of the dice will get him his jackpot, Mallya bet the farm after his Titanic had already hit an iceberg.
Grasping for Salvation: Nothing exemplifies a bankrupt rescue effort more than Vijay Mallya's constant refrain – made almost till the middle of last year – that he was talking to investors on Kingfisher. He kept claiming help was round the corner even when banks had moved in on his properties and aircraft lessors had been willing to pay Mallya's dues to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) just to repossess their aircraft.
When aircraft lessors pay somebody to repossess what is theirs, it was essentially a telling indictment of what they thought Mallya's chances of a rescue were.
Clearly, Mallya was, till very late, living in "cloud cuckoo land" - to use HDFC Bank CEO Aditya Puri's colourful phrase, used in another context.
Capitulation to irrelevance: Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher clearly did not have a snowball’s chance of being viable three years ago. He should have stopped pledging his shares two years before that in order to salvage the rest of his empire from going out of his control. He should have plotted an exit strategy in 2010, if not earlier. But he failed to see the writing on the wall, and all his claims – that a white knight would rescue him when foreign direct investment (FDI) was opened up – turned out to be so much hogwash.
When FDI was opened up, it was the most viable of businesses that would get investment. Kingfisher was a stretcher case, and it had the lowest chance of finding a white knight. If fuel costs fell, they would fall for everybody, and the resultant fare war would have damaged Mallya more than his rivals. Two years after Kingfisher went under, the fare wars continue. Mallya would not have succeeded in any event. His only option was to sell. He failed to do that, thanks largely to his unwillingness to admit that he goofed up big time.
So far, Vijay Mallya has gone by the textbook - Jim Collins' textbook - to show he can fail successfully.



Tuesday, August 5, 2014

RBI, Sebi looking at barring wilful defaulters from raising funds from the capital market


RBI and the government have already started cracking the whip on some high-profile promoters whose companies have defaulted. 


MUMBAI | KOLKATA: ET 5 Aug 2014

The Securities and Exchange Board, or Sebi, is talking to India's banking regulator on possible new rules to prevent wilful defaulters from raising funds from the capital market.

"We are in consultation with the Reserve Bank of India for finalising the wilful defaulter regulations," Sebi chief UK Sinha told reporters on the sidelines of an event organised by the Institute of Company Secretaries of India at the BSE on Monday.

RBI and the government, which controls much of the banking sector through its ownership of state-run banks, have already started cracking the whip on some high-profile promoters whose companies have defaulted. Bad loans in India were estimated to be close to Rs 2 lakh crore at last count and both the RBI and the government are worried that this could drag down many banks.

Further, banks would have to set aside more capital against such bad loans — forcing the government battling a huge fiscal deficit to allocate more funds to banks. According to officials briefed on the latest development, the discussions are in the initial stages as regulators are reviewing existing legal provisions. A lender declares a person a wilful defaulter when the borrower does not pay despite having the ability to do so. A wilful defaulter would then lose directorships in companies and the right to borrow from banks.

RBI governor, Raghuram Rajan has taken a hard line on this and the central bank is reportedly not in favour of allowing wilful defaulters from raising money or accessing the capital markets. The central bank is also considering ways to share details on defaulters with its securities market counterpart on a real-time basis.

"The system has to be tolerant of genuine difficulty while coming down hard on mismanagement or fraud," Rajan had said. Indeed, Rajan had referred to the issue of wilful defaults and the apparent lack of any consequences for promoters of such companies after he took charge in early September last year. Rajan had said that promoters don't have a divine right to stay in charge regardless of how badly they mismanage an enterprise.

"Nor do they have the right to use the banking system to recapitalise their failed ventures." "It's extremely important for all the regulators to act in coordination to ensure that defaulters cannot misuse the banking and financial system," said M Narendra, who has recently retired as chairman and managing director of Indian Overseas Bank.

Details about wilful defaulters of bank loans are shared with regulators including Sebi and credit information agencies such as Credit Information Bureau on a quarterly basis. At the end of March 2014, the non-performing assets ratio for the entire banking sector was 4.4%, a relatively high level.

The public sector banking group was alone sitting on Rs 1.23 lakh crore of NPAs on March 2013. According to All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA), the top 50 defaulters in the country accounted for about Rs 40,500 crore of these NPAs. Some banks are considering declaring Kingfisher Airlines promoter Vijay Mallya, whose airline is one of the biggest non-performing assets, as a 'wilful defaulter'.

A recent Supreme Court verdict allowing banks to name and shame defaulters freely has strengthened banks' recovery process. While, banks have used this strategy by publishing photographs and other details in newspapers to good use in most states, they faced legal restrictions in West Bengal and Kerala. The Supreme Court verdict has now removed all obstacles and banks are free to publish details of defaulters anywhere in the country, bankers said

கடனை வேண்டுமென்றே செலுத்தாத நிறுவனங்கள் மீது நடவடிக்கை எடுக்க ஆர்பிஐ-செபி ஆலோசனை



தி இந்து:செவ்வாய், ஆகஸ்ட் 5, 2014


வேண்டுமென்றே வங்கியில் பெற்ற கடனை செலுத்தாத நிறுவனங்கள் பங்குச் சந்தையில் பட்டியலிட்டிருந்தால் அவற்றின் மீது எடுக்க வேண்டிய நடவடிக்கைகள் குறித்த விதி முறைகள் விரைவில் வெளியாகும் என செபி தெரிவித்துள்ளது.

வங்கியில் கடன்பெற்று அந்தக் கடனை திரும்ப செலுத்த போதிய நிதி ஆதாரம் இருந்தும், அந்த நிதியை வேறு திட்டங்களில் பயன்படுத்திவிட்டு, கடனை செலுத்தாமல் சில நிறுவனங்கள் உள்ளன. இத்தகைய நிறுவனங்கள் மீது கடுமையான நடவடிக்கை எடுப்பதன் மூலம் வங்கியின் வாராக் கடன் அளவைக் குறைக்க முடியும் என்று ரிசர்வ் வங்கி உறுதியாக நம்புகிறது. இத்தகைய நிறுவனங்கள் பங்குச் சந்தையில் பட்டியலிட்டிருந்தால் அவற்றின் மீது எத்தகைய நடவடிக்கை எடுப்பது என்பது குறித்து ஆலோசனை நடத்தப்பட்டு வருகிறது.

இத்தகைய நிறுவனங்களை தடை செய்வது குறித்து ரிசர்வ் வங்கி இதுவரை திட்டவட்டமான முடிவு எதையும் அறிவிக்கவில்லை. இருப்பினும் இத்தகைய நிறுவனங்கள் பற்றிய விவரத்தை செபி-யுடன் பகிர்ந்து கொள்வதற்கு ரிசர்வ் வங்கி தயாராக உள்ளது.

பொருளாதார தேக்க நிலை காரணமாக சில நிறுவனங்கள் உண்மையிலேயே நிதி ஆதாரம் இல்லாமல், கடனை திரும்ப செலுத்த முடியாமல் தத்தளிக்கின்றன. இத்தகைய நிறுவனங்கள் தவிர்த்து பிற நிறுவனங்கள் மீது நடவடிக்கை எடுப்பது தொடர்பாக விரிவாக ஆராயப்படுகிறது.

கிங்பிஷர் ஏர்லைன்ஸ் நிறுவனம் வங்கிகளுக்கு மிக அதிக தொகையை செலுத்தத் தவறிவிட்டது. இருப்பினும் இந்நிறுவனத்தை வில்புல் டிபால்டர்ஸ் பட்டியலில் சேர்க்க இன்னமும் சில வங்கிகள் தயங்குவதாக செபி தலைவர் யு.கே. சின்ஹா குறிப்பிட்டார்.

இந்த வார கடைசியில் செபி இயக்குநர்கள் கூட்டம் நடைபெற உள்ளது. அதில் ரியல் எஸ்டேட் முதலீட்டு அறக்கட்டளை மற்றும் கட்டமைப்பு முதலீட்டு அறக்கட்டளை ஆகியன குறித்து விவாதிக்கப்பட உள்ளதாக அவர் கூறினார். உள்பேர வர்த்தகம் குறித்து விவாதிக்கப் போவதில்லை என்றும் அவர் குறிப்பிட்டார்.

Monday, August 4, 2014

தமிழகத்தில் வாராக்கடன் நிலுவை ரூ.5,003 கோடி


தினமலர்திங்கள், ஆகஸ்ட் 4, 2014

தமிழகம் முழுவதும், தேசிய மயமாக்கப்பட்ட வங்கிகளில், வாராக்கடன் நிலுவை, 5,003 கோடி ரூபாய் இருப்பதாகவும், நாடு முழுவதும், 1.64 லட்சம் கோடி ரூபாய் உள்ளதாகவும், பிரபல தொழில் நிறுவனங்கள், வங்கிகளில் எவ்வளவு கடன் வைத்துள்ளது என்பதை, சேலம் மாவட்ட வங்கி ஊழியர் சங்கம் பட்டியலாக வெளியிட்டுள்ளது.இந்தியா முழுவதும், 1.6 லட்சம் தேசிய மயமாக்கப்பட்ட வங்கி கிளைகள் உள்ளன. இவற்றில், அதிகாரிகள், ஊழியர்கள் என, ஏழு லட்சம் பேர் பணியாற்றி வருகின்றனர். ஐந்து ஊழியர் சங்கமும், நான்கு அதிகாரிகள் சங்கமும் செயல்பட்டு வருகிறது. தேசிய மயமான வங்கிகளை, தனியார் வசம் ஒப்படைப்பதற்கும், புதிய தனியார் வங்கிகளுக்கு லைசென்ஸ் கொடுப்பதற்கும், வங்கி ஊழியர் சங்கங்கள் கடும் எதிர்ப்பு தெரிவித்து வருகின்றன.

வங்கிகளை காப்பாற்றும் பொருட்டு, பிரபல தொழிலதிபர்கள், தொழில் நிறுவனங்கள், ஒவ்வொரு வங்கியிலும் எவ்வளவு கடன் வைத்துள்ளது என்பதை, இந்திய வங்கி ஊழியர் சம்மேளனம், சமீபத்தில் புத்தக வடிவில் வெளியிட்டது. அதேபோல், சேலம் மாவட்ட வங்கி ஊழியர் சங்கம், மாநில அளவில், வங்கிகளில் உள்ள வாராக்கடன் பட்டியலை வெளியிட்டுள்ளது. அதில், 378 தொழில் நிறுவனங்கள், 5,003 கோடி ரூபாயை நிலுவையில் வைத்துள்ளதாக தெரிவித்துள்ளனர்.வங்கி ஊழியர் சங்க, பொதுச்செயலாளர், சுவாமிநாதன் கூறியதாவது:
வங்கிகள் அனைத்தும் ரிசர்வ் வங்கியின் கட்டுப்பாட்டில் உள்ளது. வங்கிகள் கொடுத்துள்ள கடன்களை திருப்பி செலுத்துவதில், தொழில் நிறுவனங்கள் அக்கறை காட்டுவதில்லை. வங்கி நிர்வாகமும், அவற்றை வசூலிப்பதில் மெத்தனத்தை கடைபிடித்து வருகிறது. தமிழகத்தில், 85 ஆயிரம் வங்கி கிளைகள் உள்ளன. கிராமப்புறங்களில், 44 ஆயிரம் கிளைகள் செயல்படுகின்றன. வங்கி டெபாசிட் தொகை, 80 லட்சம் கோடியாகவும், கடன், 62 லட்சம் கோடியாகவும் உள்ளது. வங்கி பணியில், 10.68 லட்சம் ஊழியர்கள் உள்ளனர்.
வங்கியை காப்பாற்ற வேண்டுமெனில், வாராக்கடனை வசூலிப்பதில், மத்திய அரசு அக்கறை காட்ட வேண்டும். 378 தேசிய வங்கிகளில், 5,003 கோடி ரூபாய் நிலுவை உள்ளது. இவற்றை வசூலிக்காவிட்டால், விரைவில் போராட்ட அறிவிப்பை வெளியிடுவோம்.இவ்வாறு அவர் கூறினார்.
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LIC questions Cairn's $1.25-bn loan to parent
















FDs can fetch 9-9.5% interest versus 3.5% to be received by Cairn, say institutions

The Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India, the second largest shareholder in oil and gas producer India after the Vedanta group, has sought more information on the $1.25-billion (Rs 7,500-crore) given by the company to its parent for two years. thinks the related party transaction is not in the interest of minority shareholders.

LIC, which owns 9.09 per cent shares worth Rs 5,382 crore as of last Friday, is not happy with the company's move to give the loan at a time when Cairn requires money for its own expansion. "The loan has been given at very attractive terms for Sesa Sterlite and we would like to know how it benefits other shareholders of Cairn India," an institutional source said. A two-year fixed deposit in India would have fetched close to 9-9.5 per cent interest rate as compared to the 3.5 per cent to be received by Cairn, he said.

The loan to Sesa Sterlite was revealed for the first time in the June quarter results of fiscal 2015, which led to many institutional investors selling Cairn's shares. The Cairn India stock has lost 9.5 per cent of its value since the loan was first revealed to analysts on July 23 this year - hitting LIC hard.
An email seeking a comment from the did not elicit any response but in the post news conference analyst call, Cairn had pointed out that the Libor plus 300 basis points rate was accretive relative to existing alternatives. But investors have not bought the theory. As the company has already disbursed $800 million of the loan to Sesa Sterlite and will disburse the rest in the next few weeks, LIC is planning to seek more clarifications from the management. LIC does not have any representation on Cairn India's board, which makes it difficult for the corporation to object to the loan.

The state-owned LIC, one of India's largest investors in corporate equity and debt, does not have a track record of shareholder activism. Calling itself a "long-term" investor, LIC is less vocal as compared to global investors. LIC, which sits on Rs 225,000 crore of investments (as of FY 2014), has often emerged as the government's underwriter whenever there is low demand for shares during disinvestment.

Corporate governance advocates say Cairn did not make disclosures to other investors like LIC about such a large related party transaction and that itself was a violation of Sebi norms and warranted an investigation. "This is in complete disregard of the disclosure norms and goes against the interest of LIC. Cairn chose to do it before October 1 when, according to the new company law, a majority of small shareholders', like LIC's, approval would be needed to clear such related party transactions," says Shriram Subramanian, founder of InGovern Research Services.

The move also came under attack from analysts. Kotak Securities analysts Tarun Lokhotia, Sanjiv Prasad and Vinay Kumar say they see the related party loan facility as a significant negative. "It warrants concern on effective utilisation of existing cash/equivalents and future cash flows of the company, notwithstanding the near-term economic rationale indicated by the management," they say.

Gwalior additional judge says she was sexually harassed by HC judge, quits

Gwalior additional judge says she was sexually harassed by HC judge, quits

Dhananjay Mahapatra,TNN | Aug 4, 2014, 12.42 AM IST

In her complaint to CJI R M Lodha, the judge said the administrative judge sent her a message through the district registrar to "perform dance on an item song" at a function.

NEW DELHI: An additional district and sessions judge in Gwalior, who was heading the Vishaka committee against sexual harassment, could not save herself from the prying eyes of a Madhya Pradesh high court judge and had to resign from judicial service to protect her "dignity, womanhood and self-esteem".

After practicing law for 15 years in Delhi courts, she passed the MP Higher Judicial Service exam and was posted in Gwalior on August 1, 2011. After training under Justice D K Paliwal, she was posted as additional district and sessions judge in Gwalior in October 2012.

In April 2013, she was appointed chairperson of District Vishaka Committee. Her annual confidential report of January 2014 termed her work "excellent and outstanding". But that was not enough. The administrative judge from Gwalior bench of Madhya Pradesh HC kept pestering her to visit him in his bungalow alone, she alleged.

In her complaint to Chief Justice of India R M Lodha and Supreme Court judges Justices H L Dattu, T S Thakur, Anil R Dave, Dipak Misra and Arun Misra, as well as the MP HC chief justice, she said the administrative judge sent her a message through the district registrar to "perform dance on an item song" at a function in his residence. She avoided the function on the pretext of her daughter's birthday.

Responding to her complaint, Justice Lodha said, "This is the only profession where we refer to our colleagues as brothers and sisters. This is unfortunate. I will take appropriate action after the complaint is placed before me."






The very next day of sending a message to dance in his residence, the administrative judge told her that "he missed the opportunity of viewing a sexy and beautiful figure dancing on the floor and that he is desperate to see the same", she alleged.

The judge got angry when she did not pay heed to his "various advances and malicious aspirations". She was subjected to intense scrutiny by the administrative judge. He got more agitated when no fault was found, she said.

"I started commencing court at 10.30 am instead of 11 am and extended the working hours in the evening by one hour to 6 pm," she said but complained that this did not appease the administrative judge, who continued to harass her.

Tired of harassment, she along with her husband on June 22 went to meet the administrative judge, who was "irritated" to find her with her husband and asked her to meet him after 15 days. But even before 15 days could have elapsed, she was served with a transfer order.

In her complaint, she said, "The administrative judge, along with district judge and district judge (inspection), possibly made a false, frivolous, baseless and malicious reporting to the chief justice of MP and got me transferred on July 8, in the mid-academic session of my daughters to a remote place Sidhi by overruling the transfer policy of MP HC."





Her representation for eight-month extension to allow her daughters complete the academic session was rejected. Left with no choice, she called on the administrative judge and pleaded against the abrupt transfer saying it would affect the studies of her child who was in Class 12.

In her complaint, she said, "Mockingly, he replied that I faced this mid-academic session transfer to Sidhi for not fulfilling his aspirations and for not visiting his bungalow alone even once and he also threatened me that now he will spoil my career completely and make sure that I face ruinous prospects all my life."

She claimed the HC chief justice declined to meet her when she wanted to apprise him of the situation. "I was left with no option but to resign, so, I resigned on July 15 in compelling, humiliating and disgraceful circumstances to save my dignity, womanhood, self-esteem and career of my daughter."

Seeking justice from the CJI, she said, "Only because the perpetrator is as powerful as an 'administrative judge' that he can cast an evil eye on me, and I do not even get a hearing. What system are we following and leading this democracy to? If this is how a mother, sister and wife can be treated, who is herself no less than a judicial officer duty-bound to protect society and law, what constitutional goals are we serving?"

Why apologise now, Madras HC asks cops who arrested judge




TNN | Aug 2, 2014, 06.45 AM IST

CHENNAI: The contempt of court proceedings against three senior police officers, including a woman superintendent of police, for their role in the controversial arrest of a magistrate last year on rape charges took a serious turn on Friday with the Madras high court questioning the "unconditional apology" tendered by the officers. 

The court has already listed three issues to be decided in the case against the three officers - SP R Ponni and DSPs Suresh Kumar and C Pitchai - and posted the matter for trial. When the matter was taken up on Friday, their senior counsel offered unconditional apology to the court. 

Questioning the genuineness of the apology, a division bench of Jusice N Paul Vasanthakumar and Justice M Sathyanarayanan pointed out that the officers had justified the June 29, 2013 arrest of S Thangaraj, who was a judicial magistrate in the Nilgiris district at that time. The judges said Ponni had said in her affidavit that the arrest had to be made because charges were grave and the woman sub-inspector who lodged the rape complaint herself faced threat to life. 

The judges said the three officers were free to adopt any form of defence during trial. But, now that they had specifically denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty, they could not tender "unconditional apology" as it was self-contradictory. They then asked the senior counsel to furnish a list of witnesses to be examined during trial. 

Senior advocate Parthasarathy, who has been named amicus curiae in the case, said the SP must take responsibility for the whole episode. He was asked by the court to file necessary requests for summoning the judicial officers required to be examined in the case. 

The judges, making it clear that they would not venture into the facts of the case, said the proceedings would decide whether the police officers wilfully violated the mandatory Supreme Court judgments governing the issue. "It will be on procedural lapses," the bench said, adding that no one would be permitted to rake up facts connected to the alleged rape charges and the arrest of the magistrate. 

They then adjourned the matter to August 7 for further proceedings.