ISLAMABAD Everyone has looted this country in the last 62 years and we all should feel pity about it, Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday remarked Monday during the hearing of a suo moto case regarding written off loans. The Supreme Court asked the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to furnish all the documents regarding written off loans by the financial institutions from 1971 to present day. A three-member bench of the apex court, comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Ghulam Rabbani and Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday, was hearing a suo moto case pertaining to Rs 54 billion written off loans. The Chief Justice said in his remarks that the Court would recover the money from those who had got their loans written off. He said the written off loans belonged to public exchequer and should be spent on the welfare of the masses. Justice Ramday said that everyone had ones own share in looting and plundering the national wealth. The honourable judge remarked that everyone had looted this country during the last 62 years and we, including myself, all should feel pity about it. The Supreme Court initiated a suo moto case on a news report of an English daily that loans of about Rs 54 billion were written off. The report mentioned that the ex-government in its five-year term had written off Rs 53.499 billion bank loans - which were granted to big shots of the country - on the basis of a decision taken by the financial team of former president Pervez Musharraf in December 2002. Hafeez Pirzada, an amicus curiae, informed the Court Monday that those people who were paying their loans back were punished and they included those who had paid up to 70 percent of their loans. Justice Ramday asked Pirzada why he was telling all those things to the Court as they had been criticised for taking a suo moto notice of the case. He replied that violators of the law were benefited. The banks were asked to write off loans from the back dates, he said and added that the State Bank of Pakistan should not show discrimination. Khawaja Haris, who is assisting the Court in this case, said that the State Bank of Pakistan had to provide them certain documents like circulars, laws and directions, and on the basis of that the loans were written off. He requested the Court to direct SBP to supply them these documents. President Sindh High Court Bar Association Rashid A Rizvi also demanded that SBP should also provide them all papers. Iqbal Haider, counsel for State Bank of Pakistan, said the volume of the documents was so huge that he could not provide those documents to all the counsels. But they could get them by paying price. On February 2, the State Bank of Pakistan in its report submitted with the apex court stated that an amount of Rs 256.665 million was written off during the period of 1971 to 2009 benefiting as many as 669,819 borrowers. According to the report, the loans amounting to Rs 11.22 billion with a limit of Rs 500,000 and above were written off and a total of 1,424 people were benefited from waiver during the period of 1971 to 1996. Another 22,021 people got loans worth over Rs 202 billion written off during a span of 1997 to 2009. Similarly, in the period from 1971 to 2009, at least 646,374 people got loans worth below a limit of Rs 500,000 and out of that amount loans worth Rs 42,871 million were written off. The Chief Justice asked the SBP counsel if he could not provide documents of writes off loans to all the counsels, at least that documents should be provided to amicus curiae. The Court adjourned the case till the last week of September.