Credit card repayment

Consequences?  That settlement  record will be there in cibil for life/ few long years (not sure how long)

If it was some amount then pay through card itself / rotate . You will get some time to pay, settlement after due date will leave a dent on cibil for life 

Settlement will ruin your credit score.

Convert it to Emi and pay it off or better take personal loan pay off credit card debt and pay the Emi.

And also close the credit card as your friend is not responsible enough to use a credit card.

How much is the amount ? The banks would not go for settlement anytime soon. They will leave rabid agents behind your friend for at least a year visiting home and calling thousands of times a day. Then maybe they will offer settlement. 

 Ask him to take personal loan from bank or family and to pay that credit card outstanding in full. 

Consequences: Unfavorable terms for any future credit offers (Higher rates of interest for repayment of any future loans and/or lower sanctioned amount even for a secured loan), or worse, out right denial of access to any form of credit.

These credit bureau scores shouldn't be seen as just some yet another number for getting loans/CCs. At least, not anymore.

These scores should be seen as a part of country's on-going effort to build a Social [Credit] Scoring system.

Right now, a battered score/history will lead to automatic disqualification during preliminary verification stage when seeking jobs at high end MNCs.

Some high end housing societies insist on submitting credit reports, too.

These are good times for accessing credit (approval based on just score, bank balance) and using it (no convenience fees/surcharges unlike back in the 2000s + Wallet,GV,Rent,etc). Seems like the Policy Makers have finally come to their senses and realized that expecting the Indian population to produce something of value first and then consume wouldn't work. "Eat first, Work later" model makes the voters happy. Increased financial activity makes the Government look good.

So, this easy access wouldn't go away, but that "using it" part will.

Also, this easy access has on-boarded all kinds of profiles that were earlier considered to be un-creditworthy - Unemployed, Student, Housewife, whatnot, everything whimsically clubbed under the catch-all term: "Self Employed".

Needless to say, majority of them will use these CCs as a source of income/profit (and not as an instrument of convenience) and they would be extremely prudent with the repayments.

Given that these scores are largely derived based on how an individual performs w.r.t others, these new un-creditworthy profiles would skew the results and any defaulter would look really, really bad.

In future, where having a stable job becomes even more difficult, the sole criteria for approval may end up being the individual's credit profile.

And, due to PAN-Aadhaar linkage and pervasive use of PAN for anything that's financial, any defaulter wouldn't be able to run away from his bad past, either.

So if that friend really cares about his future, then ask him to clear those dues.

Anyway, what a wonderful world it is where a friend goes around solving your problems.