Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Aug 26: It has now come to light that chief minister, H D Kumaraswamy, had kept the proposal to issue Karnataka Debt Relief Ordinance 2018 a secret till the last minute. When he suddenly moved this issue at the cabinet meeting, several ministers were taken by surprise. All the Congress ministers including deputy chief minister, Dr G Parameshwar, expressed opposition to the proposal, it is learnt.

Parameshwar is said to have questioned the chief minister as to how can Congress party respond to the issue if the proposal is suddenly tabled without any prior information or discussion. He pointed out that this issue had not even been mentioned in the agenda of the meeting. The other Congress ministers too are understood to have stuck to the stand that it would not be possible to give their nod to this proposal without properly studying the legal repercussions of such a step.

Kumaraswamy regretted moving the matter without giving prior information to anyone. He tried to explain that this matter is a part of loan waiver and that it had been discussed in public. He stated that the opposition often tried to raise this issue to hold the government in a bind and therefore this matter had to be moved secretly and swiftly. He offered to provide draft of the ordinance and all related information. Congress ministers insisted on consulting advocate general before moving further in the matter. Advocate general, Uday Holla, who was summoned to the meeting, said that several states have enacted laws to rid poor people of debts of private moneylenders but there have also been petitions against these laws. He said that courts have held different stands on the subject, with several high courts upholding the law and a couple of them holding them unlawful. He also mentioned that unlike in the past, non-banking finance companies are strong now and that they fight such laws through courts with all their might. He felt that laws which keep these companies out of their purview might not create too much legal problems, as per reports.

After Kumaraswamy regretted for having moved the issue in a hurry without information, and insisted that such a measure is required to free poor people from the clutches of moneylenders, the meeting is said to have given its nod after it was decided to keep finance companies licensed by Reserve Bank of India out of the proposed ordinance.

It is said that Kumaraswamy had kept the move so secret that except a few JD(S) ministers and high level officials, no one had any inkling about what was coming. It is said that placing the draft of the ordinance before the cabinet sub-committee of which law and parliamentary affairs minister is the chairman is needed before it can be placed before the cabinet. But on Thursday morning, Kumaraswamy sent a file connected with the ordinance directly to law minister, Krishna Byre Gowda, asking him to move the same before the sub-committee and get it approved. Till then no Congress minister was aware about it, it is stated.

Congress party, it is said, has since made up its mind to support this step although it was taken by surprise initially, as it aims at alleviating people living in abject poverty of all liabilities. But it wants to question JD(S) as to whether Deve Gowda, who had stoutly opposed the policy of debt relief when the then chief minister, D Devaraj Urs, had moved this proposal when he was in Congresss (O), would support it now.

At the same time, Karnataka Moneylenders and Pawn Brokers Association has warned that it cannot accept the government's proposal to waive loan availed from them along with interest. It said that the members of the associaiton are ready to forgo interest but if principal has to be waived, they will be forced to commit suicide. They stated that they are ready to discard their business and return their licences. President of the association, Jayaram Soda, said that the financiers have cordial relationship with farmers to whom they lend in times of need. He said that the association members are ready to sacrifice interest, but not the principal.