Basics: who regulates what

Indian lending law is not one statute. It is a stack: a central bank with wide directive powers, a general banking law, specialised recovery laws for secured and institutional debt, a separate insolvency code, consumer and contract law running underneath all of it, and state law for anything touching land. Which layer applies to your loan depends on three things — who lent the money, what kind of security (if any) was taken, and whether you borrowed as an individual or for a business. This section explains the regulatory map before the rest of the Loans section gets into specific situations such as recovery, settlement, or going to court.