FEDERAL BANK LIMITED Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE writ petitions are filed by the creditor Bank and the defaulter. The defaulter is the sixth respondent in Writ Petition No.3026/2014, which is filed by the creditor Bank. The parties are referred to as per their status in the said Writ Petition. The petitioner had proceeded against the sixth respondent for realization of amounts due to the creditor Bank in defaulted loan accounts. SARFAESI proceedings initiated concluded in Exhibit P1 sale certificate being issued. The sale notice itself had earlier been challenged in the Securitisation Application No.50/2013 before the Debt Recovery Tribunal, Ernakulam, by the sixth respondent, in which the interim application filed for stay was rejected by a detailed order, as evidenced by Exhibit P2. Though an appeal was filed before the Debt Recovery Appellate Tribunal, the same was not taken into file for not having complied with the condition of pre - deposit. The sixth respondent was before this Court with a Writ Petition in which this Court granted time to make the pre deposit, on condition of which, the Debt Recovery Appellate Tribunal was directed to dispose of the appeal on merits. Admittedly, the pre deposit was not made even in the extended time granted by this Court and the appeal stood rejected. The petitioner herein is aggrieved by two attachments, revealed in the Encumbrance Certificate, which admittedly is beyond the time of mortgage to the petitioner, on the very same properties now sold under the SARFAESI proceedings. These two attachments were made by the very same Debt Recovery Tribunal in proceedings initiated by two Banks being the fourth and fifth respondents herein.

(2.) THE petitioner seeks for lifting of attachments and effecting mutation in the name of the alleged purchaser, the seventh respondent herein in the present writ petition. The registration of Exhibit P6 having not been effected till date by reason of the attachments, there is also prayer made to effectuate such registration. The petitioner relies on two decisions of this Court to contend that the attachments made subsequent to the mortgage are of no consequence. The decisions placed before this Court are Housing Development Finance and Another Vs. Sub Registry Officer and Others, 2011 KHC 851 and Madhan S. Vs. Sub Registrar, Kollam and Others 2014 (1) KHC 249.

(3.) THE sixth respondent defaulter, has filed W.P. (C) No. 3839/2013, purportedly challenging an order of the Lok Adalath produced as Exhibit P2. The sixth respondent contends, it is not clear as to how the Kerala State Legal Service Authority was seized of the matter. The sixth respondent asserts that the reference made was not proper and they had no notice of the same. In any event, a dispute between the Bank and the borrower being a Charitable Society, along with some party respondents were taken up before the Lok Adalath. The Lok Adalath recorded the undertaking of the respondents to pay Rs.1,99,04,449/ - to the creditor Bank towards full and final settlement on or before 15.03.2012. It was further directed that if the said condition is not complied with, then such payments could be made with interest at the rate of 10.75% per annum on or before 15.06.2012. The petitioner Bank was reserved the liberty to realize the loan amount as per the original agreement, if none of the aforesaid conditions were complied with.