The Supreme Court on Friday decided to hear a fresh plea seeking an extension of the loan moratorium scheme till the end of December. The scheme, which was devised to help borrowers tide over the crisis precipitated by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, is due to end on Monday (August 31). Borrowers had been permitted to defer loan repayments for a period of six months.

The court is currently hearing a petition challenging the levy of interest during the moratorium period — which became a contentious after the RBI issued a notification that made no mention of an interest waiver while granting the moratorium.

A bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan, in a hearing conducted through video conferencing, ordered tagging of the fresh plea filed by lawyer Vishal Tiwari with the earlier pending petition on the issue.

The RBI had come out with the notification in March after the nation-wide lockdown was imposed to curb the spread of the pandemic and had given the facility of deferred payment of instalments to borrowers and now the scheme is ending on August 31.

The lawyer told the bench, which also comprised Justices R. Subhash Reddy and M. R. Shah, that the adverse impact of the pandemic over the financial situation was still there and, hence, the moratorium scheme needed to be extended further till year-end.

Now, the plea will be heard alongside the one filed by Agra resident Gajendra Sharma, which is scheduled for hearing on September 1.

On August 26, the apex court had heard Sharma’s plea and had observed that the Centre was “hiding behind the RBI” and had asked it to reply within a week on the issue of interest being charged on instalments which have been deferred under the central bank’s scheme during the moratorium period amid Covid-19 lockdown.