Judgment :-

A.K. PATNAIK, J.

The petitioner is a society duly registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 and is engaged in taking up various common problems of the people for redressal. Concerned with the increase of the non-recovered loans advanced by the public and private sector banks in India which have come to be known as Non-Performing Assets (for short "NPAs"), the petitioner has filed this Writ Petition under Article 32 of the Constitution as a Public Interest Litigation praying for appropriate writs and directions.

2. The petitioner has stated in the Writ Petition that the aggregate figure of NPAs worked out on the basis of data compiled by the Banking Division of the Ministry of Finance is Rs.43,577/- crores. According to the petitioner, non-recovery of such huge amount of NPAs has resulted in substantial funds of banks not being available for development of the country's economy and this, in turn, has affected the citizens. The petitioner has alleged that the steps taken by the Union Government to recover the NPAs have not yielded positive results and the Finance Ministry of the Union Government is reported to have admitted that 27 nationalised banks had writte