Pooja Chandra vs Canara Bank And Ors

The petitioner has invoked the supervisory jurisdiction conferred upon the Chairperson of DRAT under Section 17-A of the Recovery of Debts Due to Banks and Financial Institutions Act,1993 (RDDBFI Act,1993' in short) feeling aggrieved by certain illegalities committed by the learned Recovery Officer in the matter of sale of one of the mortgaged properties involved in the litigation out of which this petition has arisen. The property of the petitioner has been sold in execution of recovery certificate issued by DRT in respondent bank's O.A. under Section 19 of RDDBFI Act, 1993.

At the time of hearing Mr.Sanjeev Bhandari, learned counsel for the petitioner had raised many points which according to him justify interference by the Chairperson of the DRAT in exercise of supervisory jurisdiction because the recovery officer has conferred huge financial benefit upon the auction purchaser of the property of the petitioner and corresponding loss to the petitioner as well as public exchequer. When it was put to Mr.Bhandari as to why the petitioner has not filed statutory appeal against the order of the recovery officer with which the petitioner was aggrieved as provided under Section 30 of the RDDBFI Act,1993 the answer was that in case powers are exercised by the recovery officers arbitrarily and ignoring the law the appropriate remedy in such like situations is not an appeal to the Presiding Officer of DRT but is as provided under Section 17-A of the RDDBFI Act,1993.

However, these submissions cannot be gone into in the present petition by invoking Section 17-A in view of a recent judgment dated 08.11.2019 of a Division Bench of Hon'ble Delhi High Court in CWP No. 11880/2019, "Zakir Ali Rana vs Edel Weiss Asset Reconstruction Company Limited", wherein it has been held that anyone aggrieved by any order of the recovery officer has to avail of the statutory remedy of appeal to the Presiding Officer of DRT who also has the power of superintendence over the recovery officers and DRART is not to be approached bye-passing that statutory route.

Thus, even though initially notice of this petition was issued but now the grievances of the petitioner cannot be gone into by DRAT in view of the above referred binding decision of Division Bench Hon'ble High Court of Delhi.

Consequently, this petition under Section 17A of the RDDBFI Act is rejected with the clarification that this Tribunal has not gone into the merits of the case of either party. In case the applicant is advised to approach the learned Presiding Officer with an appeal or with a petition to exercise his supervisory jurisdiction over the Recovery Officer concerned, the same shall be dealt with in accordance with law uninfluenced by the filing of the present Section 17A petition and its being rejected for the aforesaid reason.