a) The Counsel for the Applicant submitted that, he is the Managing Partner of Sriram Jewellers situated at Kollencode Village, Vilavancode Taluk, Kanyakumari District. The applicant's jewellery shop is an ISO 9001:2015 certified establishment dealing in BIS Hallmarked jewellery and has been engaged in the jewellery business since 1956. The applicant has been a customer of SBT since January 2006. Initially, the applicant had availed a CC loan of Rs.1.45 crore from SBT, Parassala Branch, and SBT increased the applicant's CC limit to Rs.10 crore. Thereafter, upon the merger of SBT with SBI, the applicant's loan account was shifted to SBI, Parassala Branch, and the Cash Credit limit was reduced to Rs.9.75 crore. The applicant had been regularly paying the dues to SBI, Parassala Branch without any default. While so, in November 2016, the Government announced demonetization and, in July 2017, implemented GST. Due to demonetization and the implementation of GST, the applicant sustained huge losses in business. Hence, the applicant requested SBI, Parassala Branch to convert the Cash Credit loan into a Loan Against Property. However, there was no response from the bank. In July 2019, without the knowledge of the applicant, the applicant's loan account was shifted to the Commercial Branch, Thiruvananthapuram, which is 45 kilometres away from the applicant's jewellery shop. Hence, the applicant could not operate the loan account at the Commercial Branch, Thiruvananthapuram. Therefore, the applicant periodically requested the Commercial Branch, Thiruvananthapuram to shift the loan account to Parassala Branch. Under such circumstances, in November 2019, the bank opened a sub-account at Parassala with a Cash Credit limit of Rs.1 crore. However, the bank failed to issue a cheque book. After repeated requests made by the applicant, the
