Understanding Regulatory Episteme as How Regulators See the World
Bhavya Sudhir and Rohith C H
June 2, 2026
I. Abstract
High-value debt recovery cases play a disproportionately important role in India’s financial system. While such cases reportedly constitute a very small fraction of the total caseload before Debt Recovery Tribunals (DRTs), they account for a dominant share of the total value of claims, prompting policy measures such as the creation of special DRT benches for cases above specified monetary thresholds. Yet, despite their systemic importance, high-value cases remain difficult to study using publicly available tribunal data. This blog examines what existing DRT administrative data can and cannot tell us about high-value cases. Drawing on case-level data from Mumbai DRTs and publicly reported policy and media sources, it highlights a critical gap: routine tribunal datasets do not systematically record claim size or recovery value. As a result, high-value cases are visible in headlines and policy discourse but largely invisible in standard performance metrics such as pendency and disposal. The blog argues that this absence of value-based metadata limits meaningful oversight of tribunal functioning and complicates efforts to design targeted institutional reforms. It concludes by outlining how relatively modest improvements in data reporting could significantly enhance transparency and evidence-based policymaking in debt recovery.
II. Introduction
Debt Recovery Tribunals (DRTs) sit at the heart of India’s formal credit enforcement system. They adjudicate claims by banks and financial institutions against defaulting borrowers and serve as one of the key institutional mechanisms for cleaning up stressed assets. Over time, however, DRTs have come to be associated less with swift recovery and more with mounting backlogs, procedural delays, and administrative bottlenecks. It is in this context that a renewed policy focus has emerged around “high-value” cases, those involving very large sums of money and, by extension, greater implications for financial stability.
Recent policy discussions indicate a renewed emphasis on the treatment of high-value debt recovery cases before Debt Recovery Tribunals (DRTs). Media reports suggest that the Union Government is considering reforms that would allow DRTs to prioritise or structurally reorganise adjudication of large-value claims, particularly in the context of persistent pendency and slow recovery outcomes. These developments signal a broader shift in how debt recovery is being conceptualised, away from uniform case processing and toward differentiated treatment based on financial exposure.1
Parliamentary Data on High-Value NPAs in Public Sector Banks
In response to an unstarred question in the Rajya Sabha on 28 March 2023, the Ministry of Finance provided data on loans and advances of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) that turned into Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) over the preceding three financial years.2 According to RBI data cited by the Government, an aggregate amount of ₹4,99,631 crore turned into NPAs in PSBs during this period.
Out of this, loans with an outstanding amount of ₹100 crore and above accounted for ₹1,47,705 crore of slippages into NPAs. This indicates that a substantial share of NPAs originated from large-value accounts.
