Debt Recovery Tribunal awaits members, 240 cases pending

KATHMANDU, Oct 14:

Files related to debt recovery of banks and financial institutions (BFIs) have been gathering dust as the government delays appointment of members of the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DBT).

As many as 240 debt recovery cases are pending at DBT as at mid-September as the post of chairperson and members are lying vacant since December last year. The government has not showed much interest to fill up the vacant posts.

The tribunal comprises of a chairperson and two members.

Of the 240 cases, 31 were filed in the current fiscal year while remaining cases are from the last fiscal year.

“The number of cases filed at the tribunal is increasing. But no action has been taken on them as all the posts of tribunal members are lying vacant for the past 10 months,” Dev Kumar Shrestha, registrar of DRT, told Republica.

Krishna Prasad Devkota, under secretary of the Ministry of Finance, said the process to appoint chairperson and members have been affected due to delay in the recommendation of a ‘law member’ by the Ministry of Law and Justice (MoLJ).

The tribunal is comprised of three members -- one each from law, banking and account background.

MoLJ officials, however, blamed the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) for the delay in appointment of ‘law member’ in the tribunal. “We have already sent a proposal to appoint the member in DRT to the commission,” MoLJ Spokesperson Tek Prasad Dhungana said. “We will forward the name to the finance ministry once the commission approves the name.”

JSC Secretary Krishna Giri told Republica that the commission’s upcoming meeting will approve the name of the law member.

The delay in the appointment of tribunal members have also affected implementation of the verdict given by DRT. As many as 482 cases settled by the tribunal are yet to be implemented. Of the 500 settled cases, DRT managed to implement only 18 verdicts in the current fiscal year.

Registrar Shrestha attributed lack of sufficient workforce for delay in verdict implementation. “We only have one loan recovery officer. He has to visit throughout the country to study collaterals pledged in each and every case which is time consuming,” Shrestha added.

Source: Republica