Don't overstate bank frauds, says Finance Minister

Despite `King of Good Times' Vijay Mallya defrauding banks, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday cautioned against making too much about bad loans in the banking system, which might affect banks lending and growth. Bankers might become `extrordinarily defensive,' he said if bad loan crisis was overstated. The whole activity of landing for growth should not suffer as such. If there were prima facie cases of misconduct and misdemeanour in lending, these should be looked into `differently.' The Finance Minister was speaking after the Reserve Bank of India board meeting. The need for cleaning up banks' balance sheets was discusssed at the meeting. Along with Jaitley were his deputy Jayant Sinha and RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan. The current debate in the media is all about misconduct and misdemeanour. Apparently the Finance Minister and the media are not on the same page as for the semantics of misconduct and misdemeanour. Liquor baron Vijay Mallya's massive default on bank loans running into thousands of crores is apparently a `misdemeanour' by him and misconduct by the the banker concerned. Even if taken lightly for continuing the lending system, misconduct is not misdemeanour and much more serious. Employees are sacked for misconduct. So would the bankers be sacked for misconduct or would it be simply deemed misdemeanour? The Finance Minister cannot afford to be so liberal.