In six weeks, the Supreme Court wants a list of all companies who owe Rs 500 crore or more to state-run banks.The top court instructed the Reserve Bank of India to also disclose the companies whose bad debts have been restructured.Judges have asked how state-run banks are sanctioning huge loans without proper guidelines and whether there are adequate methods in place to recover them."You have a list of major defaulters who run empires," said the Supreme Court to the central bank. The Indian Express recently reported that 29 state-owned banks have written off Rs 1.14 lakh crore or $16.7 billion as bad debts over the last two years.The details sought by the top court will be presented in a sealed envelope to ensure confidentiality.Its decision was made as judges heard a case filed by lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan, which alleges vast financial malpractices at the government-run HUDCO (Housing and Urban Development Corporation) in the allocation of loans totalling up to nearly Rs 14,000 crore in the early 2000s. Mr Bhushan alleged that about Rs 40,000 crore of corporate debt was written off last year by state-run banks.The top court's directive comes amid heightened concerns over a sharp increase in bad loans in public sector banks that has led many lenders post big losses in the December quarter.The Reserve Bank has set a March 2017 deadline for clean-up of bad loans in the Indian banking system, which is estimated at $100 billion (Rs 6.8 lakh crore). Public sector banks account for nearly 85 per cent of the total bad debt in the banking system. (1 dollar = 68 rupees)