The Recovery of Debts and Bankruptcy Act, 1993, is a special law with a complete code for expeditious recovery of dues to banks and financial institutions. The Act's provisions, especially regarding review petitions and appeals, must be interpreted in light of the specific language and intent of the Act.

JUDGMENT :

R.F. Nariman, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. The present appeal raises interesting questions which arise under the Recovery of Debts and Bankruptcy Act, 1993 (hereinafter referred to as “the RDB Act” or “the Act”). The brief facts necessary to appreciate the questions raised are as follows:-

(i) On 29.08.2008, a Receivables Purchase Agreement was executed between Standard Chartered Bank, which is the appellant before us and MSTC Limited, which is a Government Company-respondent herein, whereunder receivables from overseas buyers in respect of invoices raised by the respondent against foreign buyers were purchased by the appellant. 95% of the amount raised by the invoices was remitted to the respondent.

(ii) An Export Insurance Policy was obtained by these parties from ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company under which the Insurance Company agreed to indemnify the respondent and the appellant in the event of default in payment of foreign buyers.

(iii) The appellant had lodged a claim with the said Insurance Company which, however, was repudiated on 03.03.2011. In this background, on 13.03.2012, the appellant filed an application under Section 19 of the RDB Act being O.A. No. 43 of 2012 before the DRT, Mumbai for recovery of a sum of Rs.191,03,54,070.96.

(iv) An I.A was then filed by the respondent before the DRT Mumbai, challenging its jurisdiction, which was ultimately disposed of on 26.09.2013 and an appeal therefrom was dismissed on 03.02.2017, holding that the DRT Mumbai did have territorial jurisdiction to go ahead with the case.

(v) At this point, an I.A was filed by the appellant stating that given the admissions contained in the balance sheet of the relevant years of the respondent-Company, a sum of Rs. 222,51,00,000/-was owed by the respondent to the appellant. This I.A. was allowed by the DRT Mumbai on 26.10.2017.

(vi) An appeal was filed by the respondent-Company against the said order before the DRAT on 14.11.2017. While the appeal was pending, Review Application No. 1 of 2018 was filed on 18.12.2017 before the DRT by the respondent-Company after the appeal that was lodged earlier in point of time was withdrawn by the respondent-Company on 02.01.2018.

(vii) In the meanwhile, an application dated 16.02.2018 was made to condone a 28 day delay in filing the review petition before the DRT, the period of limitation under Rule 5A of the Debt Recovery Tribunal (Procedure) Rules, 1993 (hereinafter referred to as “the Rules”) being 30 days. This review petition was dismissed by the DRT on 21.04.2018, in which this Court’s judgment reported in International Asset Reconstruction Company of India Limited vs. Official Liquidator of Aldrich Pharmaceuticals Limited and Others, (2017) 16 SCC 137 was followed, and Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 was held not to be applicable to review petitions that were filed under Rule 5A of the Rules. A further plea to exclude time taken under Section 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963 was also dismissed by the DRT stating that a filing of the review petition after the appeal would show that the appeal provision, which requires a minimum 25% deposit, was sought to be circumvented, and, therefore, this being the case, time taken under Section 14 cannot be excluded as the respondent-Company did not move bona fide in the matter.

(viii) From the order dated 21.4.2018, a writ petition was filed before the Bombay High Court on 26.04.2018, which was then disposed of by the impugned judgment on 03.05.2019, holding that the alternative remedy of filing an appeal not being available, the writ petition would be maintainable. In any case, the judgment of this Court in International Asset Reconstruction Company of India Limited (supra) was confined to consideration of Section 30 of the RDB Act, and paragraph 14 of the said judgment would make it clear that it would apply to the facts of this case inasmuch as an original application made under Section 19 of the RDB Act, (which by the definition clause under Sectio