JUDGMENT :

1. The petitioner, State Bank of India, is aggrieved by the order of the Chairperson, Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal, Mumbai [hereafter “the DRAT(M)”, for short] dated 8th April, 2021, refusing to condone the delay of 273 days in presentation of an appeal under section 18 of the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002 [hereafter “the SARFAESI Act”, for short]. The appeal had been carried by the petitioning bank against an order dated 2nd June, 2018 of the Presiding Officer, Debts Recovery Tribunal, Pune [hereafter “the DRT(P)”, for short], passed on an application under section 17 of the SARFAESI Act of the respondent no.1.

2. The order under challenge dated 8th April, 2021 records that although the application under section 17 of the SARFAESI Act was allowed by the DRT(P) on 2nd June, 2018, certified copy of the said order was received on 5th July, 2018 whereafter the appeal was presented on 10th April, 2019; that the application seeking condonation of delay was completely silent as regards the date on which the applicant instructed its advocate to apply for the certified copy and the date on which the certified copy was actually applied for; that the application contains no detail of the documents that were required to accompany the memorandum of appeal; and that no particulars of misplacement of the file and the correspondence exchanged with the applicant’s advocate had been disclosed except for a vague statement that the papers were recovered by the applicant towards the end of March, 2019. The Chairperson of the DRAT(M), therefore, was of the view that sufficient cause has not been shown for condonation of delay leading to rejection of the application made in this behalf.

3. Mr. Mayur Khandeparkar, learned advocate appearing for the petitioner, contends that the Chairperson of the DRAT(M) adopted a hyper-technical approach in dismissing the application for condonation of delay. He further contends that the Chairperson failed to appreciate the causes and reasons set out by the petitioner in the proper perspective. Being a public sector bank, the principle of leniency in matters of condonation of delay could not have been given a go-bye specially when the petitioning bank, because of reasons beyond its control, had failed to present the appeal within the period of limitation. He also contends that in an institution, as huge as the petitioning bank, there are several matters at any given point of time on which decisions are to be taken and there being a distinct possibility of certain decisions being delayed, such factor ought to have been considered by the Chairperson. In support of his submissions, Mr. Khandeparkar relies on the decision of the Supreme Court in State of Nagaland vs. Lipok Ao & Ors., (2005) 3 SCC 752 for the principle that

“what counts is not the length of the delay but the sufficiency of the cause and shortness of the delay is one of the circumstances to be taken into account in using the discretion.”

as well as

“A pragmatic approach has to be adopted and when substantial justice and technical approach are pitted against each other the former has to be preferred.”

4. We have not considered it necessary to call upon the learned advocate for the respondent no.1 to address us.

5. The petitioning bank appears to have filed a short application for condonation of delay before the Chairperson of the DRAT(M), the contents whereof were spread over 9 (nine) paragraphs. Paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 contain the reasons for which the petitioning bank could not present the appeal before the DRAT(M) within the period of limitation. Such paragraphs are quoted below: -

“4. The Appellant further states that the Annexures which were to be annexed in support of the Appeal were to be received from the previous Advocate, who use to handle the matter in DRT-Pune. The S.A. was handled by the Appellant’s Advocate at Pune, with whom the Bank use to co-ordinate on regular b