Following the recent ruling by the Supreme Court, the chief judicial magistrate of Alipore court has directed the police to ensure the presence of a Delhi-based official of a nationalized bank to be summoned within 15 days, in a debt recovery case.

Ajay Bharti, an executive of SBI Cards and Payment Services Private Limited, had ignored a directive issued by the court in September 2007.

The court ruling follows the case where Ms. Jayeeta Basu had alleged that Bharti and two others — Shantanu Bhattacharya and Suresh Chatterjee — had made threatening calls to her father, Manotosh, demanding credit card dues "that had already been paid". Bharti has been evading the court hearing from September of last year.

"While Chatterjee and Bhattacharya have obeyed the summons, Bharti hasn’t," said Tamal Mukherjee, who appeared for Basu

Recently, The Supreme Court had ruled that banks had no right to use musclemen to recover dues. It had penalized the bank, ICICI, and had detested the practice of using musclemen or goons for debt recovery citing the need for a civil code of conduct.

The Basus alleged the three people in question, on behalf of the bank, had violated the apex court order by sending goons to their Hussainpur house, on the southern part of the city. They had lodged a complaint with Tiljala police station.

Basu’s petition stated that Abhijit Pal and Bikash Das, who had been threatening the family members to cough up the "dues", and a few other men had tried to damage furniture in the house.

"They fled after Jayeeta shouted out at them," Mukherjee said