The Kerala High Court observed on Tuesday that a student’s application for an education loan cannot be denied because of a low CIBIL Score.
In the case of Noel Paul Fredy v. State Bank of India & Anr, Justice P.V. Kunhikrishnan made the observation that banks should take a “humanitarian approach” when evaluating applications for education load.
The Court Observed, “Students are the nation builders of tomorrow. They have to lead this country in the future. Simply because, there is a low CIBIL score to a student, who is an applicant for an Education loan, I am of the considered opinion that the Education loan application ought not to have been rejected by Bank.”
Student who received two loans filed the petition. One of his loans was cancelled by the bank, and another had a late payment of Rs 16,667, which negatively impacted his CIBIL score. The solicitors claimed that since the student had obtained employment in Oman, the petitioner should now be able to pay off the entire loan balance.
The court directed the respondents to disburse the amount of Rs.4,07,200/- to the College of the petitioner.
“Here is a case, where the petitioner obtained a job offer too. Banks may be hyper technical, but a court of law can not ignore the ground realities,” the Court observed.
The petitioner was represented by Senior Advocate George Poonthottam, and Advocates Nisha George, and Ann Maria Francis. The Standing Counsel for SBI Jithesh Mon, Senior Advocate K.K. Chandran Pillai, and Advocate Ambily S. appeared on behalf of the respondents.