Farmer Sukhwinder Singh, who owns two acres of farm land in Joga village in Mansa district, is “very happy” that Punjab State Cooperative Bank has returned his three blank cheques, taken as informal security from him against a loan of Rs 2 lakh. Farmer Gursewak Singh of Biroke Kalan village at Budhlada subdivision of Mansa district too got back his three blank cheques from Punjab National Bank. Not just the three, the commercial/nationalised banks have started returning the signed blank cheques taken from many small and marginal farmers as informal security against loans up to Rs 10 lakh, ahead of the deadline set by farmers’ unions. Some banks have even destroyed such cheques so that these could not be used against the farmers any more. On February 22, State Level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC) had told the Punjab and Haryana High Court that the banks had, in principle, decided to return such cheques collected from farmers with landholdings of less than five acres or against loan liabilities up to Rs 10 lakh. Farmers’ union, which had staged massive protest from February 18 to 22 in Ludhiana, had said that they would wait till March 7 and if the banks did not return the cheques, they would take further course of action. These cheques were like a hidden handcuffs for me as banks were using them to send farmers to jails by filing cases under Section 138 of Negotiable Instrument Act, 1881,” says Sukhwinder. SLBC Convener P K Anand said that directions have been given to all banks to return the blank cheques of small and marginal farmers having loans up to Rs 10 lakh. The banks are already returning these cheques across state, added he. Kulwant Singh Kishangarh, State Committee Member of Bhartiya Kisan Union Ekta (Dakuanda), said that they had helped 70 small and marginal farmers to get their blank cheques back from Central Cooperative Bank, Mansa, in the past couple of days. Similarly 10 farmers from Bhanigarh in Sangrur district too got their blank cheques back from State Bank of India with the help of the BKU (Dakuanda). The Indian Express had, in a report on February 18, detailed the instances of farmers facing trial or even conviction in criminal cases of cheque-bounce filed by banks under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act. The banks had allegedly taken these blank cheques from farmers without their informed consent at the time of granting loans and resorted to coercive means of recovery by invoking Section 138. BKU (Dakuanda) general secretary Jagmohan Singh said that they also demand that the small and marginal farmers who were sent to jail by using such cheques should also be released on similar lines because they too had taken less than Rs 10 lakh loan, the limit set by the SLBC itself. “The jailed farmers too had given blank cheques to the banks,” he said. He also demanded that kurki (auction of land) against failure of loan repayment should also be stopped because this method too is similar to taking blank cheques. “The banks are getting the kurki orders passed from courts to recover their loans.” Sukhdev Singh Kokarikalan, general secretary BKU (Ugrahan), said they are getting the kurkis stopped daily and the government should also ask the banks to stop such coercive methods.
