CII-bankers row — MPs demand defaulters list

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 20: The face-off between the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and bank trade unions today intensified with MPs demanding that the Government publish the name of corporate defaulters which owed nationalised banks a whopping Rs 45,000 crore, and adding that the CII task force had recommended the closure of three banks precisely because they thought this would ensure that no names came out.

CII which made a major climb-down yesterday, and said that it no longer wished that these three banks be closed — its task force headed by ICICI’s K V Kamath had recommended that Indian Bank, Uco Bank and United Bank of India be shut down last week — today put out a press note stating that neither Rahul Bajaj nor Arun Bharat Ram were defaulters as alleged by the bank unions. CII, however, did not get into the allegations made by the bank unions that its members were huge defaulters and it was because of them that the banks had become sick in the first place.

The matter was raised by Selva Ganapathy (AIADMK) during zero hour and he was supported by members from other parties including former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar and Rajesh Pilot (Congress).