India, April 5 -- The Supreme Court has stepped in to resolve the grievance of a man whose credit score remained "negative" for years despite having no outstanding loan or default, prompting banks and Credit Information Bureau (India) Limited CIBIL to finally correct their records.

This telling instance of how erroneous credit records can choke access to finance came up before a bench of justices JB Pardiwala and KV Viswanathan. The case arose from a petition filed by Rajendra Singh Panwar, a businessman and resident of Uttarakhand, who complained that an adverse CIBIL score had effectively locked him out of the financial system since 2020, even though he had no outstanding dues.

Panwar's plea, argued through senior counsel PS Patwalia,...