The Supreme Court on Friday asked the finance ministry and the RBI to hold a meeting within three days to decide on the waiver of interest on interest for deferred payments of instalments for loans during the moratorium period because of the lockdown.

The court was hearing a plea filed by an Agra resident . A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, S.K. Kaul and M. R. Shah said the question was not of the waiver of complete interest for entire moratorium period but only on interest charged on interest by banks.

It posted the matter for further hearing next week.

During the hearing, the bench said that it was trying to take a balanced view of the matter, and only wants that wider measures should be adopted.

Solicitor-general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, said that he had sought a meeting with the RBI.

The bench said that if the RBI reply “goes much beyond the query posed by us there will be a lot of opinions on it”.

“Our query is very limited on whether there can be waiver of interest on interest,” it said. It asked the Centre to file an affidavit after holding the meeting with the RBI .

The bench was hearing a plea filed by Gajendra Sharma, in which he has sought a direction to declare the portion of the RBI’s March 27 notification “as ultra vires to the extent it charges interest on the loan amount during the moratorium period”.

On June 4, the top court had sought the finance Ministry’s reply on waiver of interest on loans during the moratorium period after the RBI said it would not be prudent to go for a “forced waiver of interest” risking financial viability of the banks.

Since the moratorium was announced there have been concerns about the compounding cost. Experts have advised individuals that if they have the capacity to pay, they should not avail of the moratorium as interest component accrued will be added to the outstanding amount — on which interest needs to be paid that will see the tenure of the loan going up or EMI amount will rise.