“What about Adani?” is not a valid response to the NDTV raids. Whataboutery isn’t the logical argument. The case has to be discussed on its own merits.
That said, a “One Time Settlement” (OTS) is by definition, one time, and a settlement, not to be reopened after a decade of buyer’s remorse (I should know. I am a veteran of more OTSs than most people have loans). If a private bank must investigate a dubious OTS, it is the bank’s internal auditor who needs to be the one questioning the people responsible, and then fixing the blame. If irregularities are found, a proper FIR must be registered against those officers and the ex-debtor (and only if the ex-debtor used illegal means to get a favourable OTS, and not if the ex-debtor was simply a good negotiator and got a better deal than the bank), and only then can action be initiated, and must move according to the due process of law and within the framework of natural justice.
Only, and if only, the OTS (which, by itself is a very well understood, frequently utilised, and internationally accepted method of settling NPAs) is seen as a cause of a bank collapse may the relevant authority (viz., The RBI) instigate an independent investigation, and once a report is filed, may register an FIR, from where (once again) the due course of law and natural justice must follow.
What is happening presently is a crude brute force method of silencing critics by a government that is so insecure even in the muscular majority it enjoys in the legislature that there seems no difference between a supposedly free, democratic society such as ours and a tinpot dictatorship. That people are either normalising it, applauding the government, or indulging in whataboutery is unfortunate at best, and dangerously suicidal at worst.
