New Money-lenders Bill

A FEW days ago, we published the text of the new Money-Lenders Bill which Mir Maqbool Mahmood has brought forward and which is intended to take the place of the previous Bill on the subject. The main objections against the old Bill were that, besides being unnecessary, unjust and conceived in the interests of a particular community, it was too wide, and its provisions were calculated to penalise money-lending as such and make it very nearly impossible for the creditor to recover his dues from the debtor. After a careful perusal of the new Bill, we are constrained to say that it is open to all these objections. First as to the definition of the term, “money-lender”. According to the Bill, the term means a Sahukar and includes every person whose business is that of money-lending, or who advertises or announces himself or holds himself out as carrying on that business, or who is a quasi money-lender. “Quasi money-lender” is defined as “a retail dealer who advances loan in cash as well as in kind or who charges interest on his trade balances”. These definitions are as comprehensive as they could possibly have been, and the net is cast so wide that even the trader in the towns who deals with educated people, and not villagers, cannot compel his customers to pay interest on their purchase if they do not choose to pay cash. That the Bill is primarily designed to hamper Sahukars in the recovery of their money is also clear from the above definition.