Farmers allege bank auctioned house despite repaying loan

Farmers in Mysuru staged a protest against the alleged auctioning of a farmer's house despite him repaying the loan. The bank authorities deny the allegations and state that legal proceedings were initiated due to default in payments. The outstanding amount is ₹44.5 lakh.

Mysuru: The Mysuru farmers’ association staged a protest on Tuesday against the alleged auctioning of a farmer’s house despite him having repaid a loan. .

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Farmers said Doreswami had got a loan of ₹15 lakh in 2013 from Krishnarajanagara branch of Karnataka Gramin Bank where he offered his house deed as collateral. They claimed that while Doreswami made regular payments on a monthly basis, covering both interest and principal amount, the bank authorities had still auctioned his house to a single bidder. This prompted more than 50 farmers to stage a protest at the Karnataka Gramin Bank, accusing the bank of illegally seizing the property. Doreswami said he has repaid nearly ₹19 lakh till now.

However, the bank authorities refuted the allegations made by the farmers.

“The farmer availed a loan of ₹15 lakh from the K R Nagar branch of the bank in 2013, but he started defaulting on the payments after some time,” Shankar Narayana, the bank’s regional manager, told HT. “Though we initiated the legal proceedings to recover the payment, we halted it in 2020-21 owing to Covid. Then in 2022, we again started the process under Securitization and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act,” added Narayana.

While the farmer approached the debts recovery tribunal (DRT), seeking stay on the auction, the tribunal declined, the official said.

“The e-auction is pending and the bank has to recover an outstanding amount of ₹44.5 lakh from the farmer. We are even ready for one one-time settlement but the farmer is not cooperating. The customer availed loan by mortgage category, so it does not come under the agriculture category,” said the regional manager.