KOCHI: The Kerala high court has ordered for providing police protection to evict a family at Pathadipalam from their home. They had stood as surety for a loan of Rs 2 lakh from Lord Krishna Bank for a friend and were asked to pay back Rs 2.7 crore or lose residential their property worth Rs 2.5 crore for Rs 37 lakh in auction, as their friend defaulted.

A division bench comprising acting chief justice Hrishikesh Roy and justice CK Abdul Rehim granted police protection to take possession of the property and delivering it to Ratheesh MN of Alangad, who had bought the property in auction. In a complaint filed to the court, the family had alleged that Ratheesh is a construction worker and that he is a benami of the land mafia that works in collusion with the officials of the debts recovery tribunal (DRT).

As per the complaint filed by Preetha Shaji, wife of MV Shaji, of Pathadipalam, her husband had stood surety for a friend for a loan of Rs 2 lakhs for his friend. The friend defaulted on the loan but made them believe that he’s fighting the bank legally. The bank moved for recovery through DRT seeking a repayment of Rs 2.7 crore or auctioning of 18.5 cents of land and the house in it that is allegedly worth Rs 2.5 crore for Rs 37 lakhs, the complaint said. The auction was conducted by a DRT official who was later arrested for accepting bribe from land mafia who buys auctioned property of defaulteRs at low prices, it was alleged.

When the loan went to default in 1997, Shaji had sold four cents of land and had made payment towards the loan, Preetha’s complaint said while arguing that they had always been willing to make the payment. But Lord Krishna Bank, which later merged with HDFC Bank , kept on demanding huge sums so as to prevent them from closing the loan. One of their properties (7 cents of land) worth Rs 90 lakhs was identified by the village officer as per DRT’s directive for repayment. But the bank zeroed in on their residential property so as to make illegal profit for the land mafia by auctioning it at a low price, Preetha had alleged in the complaint.

