IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.21881 of 2008 Date of decision: 26.04.2010 M/s Neetu Color Lab Pvt. Ltd. ….Petitioner versus Oriental Bank of Commerce, New Anaaj Mandi, Sirhind road, Patiala, through the authorized officer. …Respondent CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ------ Present: Mr. Rohit Suri, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. Ashok Sharma, Advocate, for the respondent. ----- 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2. To be referred to the reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest? ----- K.Kannan, J (Oral) 1. The petitioner challenges notice issued under Section 13(2) of the Securitization Act and the further proceedings for taking possession under Section 14. The admitted case is that the petitioner has suffered a recovery certificate issued by the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) and before it was put through execution, it appears a settlement had been arrived at when the petitioner was given some concessions and the petitioner had offered to discharge the loan before 30.11.2008. At the time of the settlement was made, the amount due by the petitioner was 42 lakhs which the petitioner had undertaken to pay before Civil Writ Petition No.21881 of 2008 - 2 - 30.11.2008. He had however paid before that date only an amount of Rs.5 lakhs. Consequently, the Bank appears to have issued a notice (Annexure P-6) withdrawing the concessions and annulling the settlement on the ground that the amount had not been paid as per the terms of the settlement. While the Bank was taking further steps for execution under the SARFAESI Act, the writ petition has come to be filed. 2. The contention of the petitioner is that if the petitioner has made a payment of Rs.5 lakhs and if the whole amount had not been paid as agreed before 30.11.2008, the Bank could have only claimed further interest and they had no right for unilateral withdrawal of the settlement. The learned counsel refers to a decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Sardara Associaties Versus PSB-(2009) 8 SCC 257 that the Bank is bound to honour the settlement terms. In my view, the reliance on the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court is meaningless, for, the Hon'ble Supreme Court dealt with statutory character of a direction by the Reserve Bank under Section 21-A of the Reserve Bank of India Act and if there was a direction for the Reserve Bank providing for OTS to certain classes of persons, a borrower is entitled to seek for application of the OTS. In this case, the situation is different that a settlement had in fact been executed between the parties. There was admittedly a breach of terms of the settlement. When the Bank chose to withdraw the concessions and put the petitioners specifically to the notice of such withdrawal, the action of the respondent could not be assailed. Any resort to recovery pursued under the SARFAESI Act, cannot be a matter Civil Writ Petition No.21881 of 2008 - 3 - of challenge unless there is any violation of the provisions of the law. The petitioner shall still have a remedy, if he is aggrieved to prefer an appeal under Section 17 of the SARFAESI Act. If there are valid grounds for a challenge to the recovery after notice under Section 13(4) that could be urged in an appeal under Section 17. The petitioner may seek to exclude the time taken before this Court for prosecution of the writ petition and if such a plea is made, the DRT shall consider the same uninfluenced by any observations that are made above. A judicial intervention under Article 226 is impermissible as per the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Transcore Versus Union of India-(2008) 1 SCC 125. 3. The writ petition is dismissed. However, there shall be no directions as to costs. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 26.04.2010 sanjeev