The union announces to shut up the branches of the bank in 10 districts on May 11.
Raghbir Singh Brar
Faridkot
May 2,2026.
Bank manager remains elusive for his version despite all possible communications by this reporter.
The banks allegedly forced the farmers to hand them over blank cheques-Jagjeet Singh Dallewal.
The farmers are sued for unhonoured cheques-Dallewal.
DC,SSP expressed their inability to recover the blank cheques retained by the banks-Dallewal.
When property worth Rs 50 lakh is pledged,why force farmers hand over the bank the blank cheques-Bohar Singh.
Even after the NOCs, farmers are dragged into the court-alleged Bohar Singh.
The stage protest led by the Bhartia Kisan Union Sidhupur-Ekta outside the Punjab Agriculture Development Bank Faridkot entered the 32nd day today, but so far, an amicable solution has been found out.
“The banks sanction loans to the farmers by pledging their land and they are supposed to give a loan to the farmers upto the 70 to 80 per cent of the net value of the land pledged by the farmers.But the banks give the farmers less than 10 per cent loan against the value of the pledged property.Breaching the law, the banks asks the farmers to hand over them the blanks cheques against the loans and even after the full payment of the loans,in some cases, the banks file court cases on the behalf of the blank cheques,” alleged Jagjeet Singh Dallewal,state president of the BKU Sidhupur Ekta and convener of the SKM non political speaking to the Punjab Express.com. over the phone.
“When a farmer avails the loan, his property is pledged with the bank.But the banks illegally force the farmers to give them blank cheques which is totally in violation of the existing laws.Then the bank files a case on the basis of fabricated story that its employees had approached the farmer to pay the installment of the loan,but farmer gave them a cheque.When this cheques was submitted for clearance with the bank, it was returned with the remarks that there is no sufficient amount in that account of the said farmer.The bank sue the farmers on the basis of the unhonoured cheque instead of the recovery of the loan.If the case is filed for the recovery of the loan, the farmers can raise questions and see the file of his loan,but when the case is filed for unhonoured cheque, they are mostly punished by law,” said Jagjeet Singh Dallewal.
“Some farmers have contacted us that after NOCs issued by the banks or reaching at an settlement in a Lok Adalat, bank sued them in the court.When some farmer is issued NOC, he can get his land freed in the revenue record,but even after that, the banks made entries of pending loans in the land records,’ said Dallewal.
“We have requested the DC and SSP Faridkot to check the record of the bank by raiding it and recover the blank cheques,but they express their inability.we have further requested them to seek appropriate orders from the higher authorities, but nothing has been done so far,” alleged Dallewal.
Dallewal elaborated the cases with many of his examples where the farmers had to suffer.
“First of all, the bank denied that it had retained the blank cheques with it, but later on ,a team from Chandigard head office of the bank reached Faridkot.In the presence of the DC and other officials, it said that the bank retained the duly filled cheques,not the blank ones,’ said Bohar Singh Rupian Wala,district President of the BKU Sidhupur-Ekta.
“We started the protest on March 30, the team from Chandigarh reached on about April 2,but so far no conclusion has been reached. We say that when the bank sanctions a loan of about 3-4 lakhs after one acre of mortgage and they get our land worth Rs 50 lakh,why do they get the blank cheques?asks Bohar Singh.
“The Dharna stands out because the bank issued NOC to the farmers,but again put the entries of the loan in their land record,” said Bohar Singh.
The BKU Sidhupur Ekta started stage protest against the PADB in Faridkot after the two farmers brothers committed suicide by jumping under a train.They belong to village Hari Naoun of the dsitrict.
Despite a call and recorded message, two text messages and a whatsapp message to Jagroop Singh, the manager of the PADB could not be contacted.If his version comes, the story would be updated with that.
Dallwal alleged that the bank in question has about 800 files of farm loans and many of them might have been forced to submit multiple cheques,which needed to be returned.
