JUDGMENT

Dated this the 6th day of January, 2023 The petitioner is the Proprietor of a small enterprise named 'Surya Travels', conducting tour operations, including interstate passenger transport. Surya Travels is registered under the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (Udayam Registration). In between the period, 15.11.2018 and 07.02.2020, respondent No. 9 sanctioned 11 loans totaling a sum of Rs.6,74,35,327/- to the petitioner for purchasing 11 stage carriage vehicles for augmenting the business. While repayments were being effected towards the loans, Covid pandemic struck, affecting the business and thereby, the life and livelihood of all persons like the petitioner. With the objective of lending a helping hand to the MSME units to tide over the crisis, various relief measures were brought out by the Central Government. One such relief measure is the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS). The objective of the scheme is to provide 100% guarantee coverage to Banks and NBFCs, so as to enable them to extend emergency credit facilities to business enterprises/MSMEs to meet their additional term loan/additional working capital requirements. The ECLG Scheme was la