A bank is not entitled to collect lease rentals beyond the authorized amount, and the court can grant an injunction restraining the bank from realizing the rentals if it has already collected its dues.

An application had been made by the petitioner for appointment of Receiver in respect to all the rental-lease-moneys payable by the parties who had been named in the petition and also an order of injunction restraining the respondent-bank from realising the lease rentals from those parties on the ground that upon scrutiny of the statement of account furnished by the defendant-bank, the petitioner had found that an unauthorised debit of Rs. 1,23,01,075/- was made from the account of the plaintiff which was being maintained by the defendant bank. The application had been disposed of upon affidavit by an order dated January 4, 1999. In the order it had been recorded that "the bona fide of the allegation by the bank of its receiving instructions on behalf of the petitioner over the telephone and merely on that basis disbursing the sum of Rs. 1,23,01,075.00 p., I am afraid, was not established before this Court". It was also recorded in the order that "the bank admittedly was to receive reimbursement of balance portion of the advance it had already made to the petitioner.” The bank was to collect upto a sum of Rs. 1,76,00,000/- from the various parties which were the dues of the bank at that time and upon collection of such lease rentals the bank was to intimate the petitioner. The bank was restrained by an order of injunction from debiting the account of the petitioner in respect of interest, penal interest, service charges, etc.

2. The petitioner made this application after disposal of the above matter and by an order dated March 25, 1999 directions for affidavit were given. No ad interim order was made as because it had been observed in the order that "There was no prima facie proof which would substantiate the contentions made on behalf of the petitioner to entitle the petitioner to an ad interim order as prayed for in the petition". Parties have filed their affidavits and the matter was taken up for hearing for final disposal.

3. It was brought to my notice by Counsel appearing for the petitioner that the statement of account annexed to the affidavit-in-opposition being Annexure 'C' had been disclosed by the bank for the first time and that the diverse entries had not been calculated finally and the total disclosed with ulterior motive. He submitted that if the entries were totalled it would appear that the bank had collected as on March 4, 1999 more than a sum of Rs. 2 crores. He argued that in other words, an incorrect statement had been deliberately made in respect to the collection of the bank as regards the lease rentals. He referred to a letter dated March 8, 1999 being Annexure 'G' to the petition written by the petitioner to the bank and submitted that is spite of allegation that the entire dues of the bank had been liquidated, the bank did not reply to that letter till date.

4. Counsel appearing for the bank submitted that the two orders made in this matter dated January 4, 1999 and March 25, 1999 were abundantly clear, and the Court had taken notice of all the facts, and the orders adequately protected both the parties till the suit was heard and disposed of. According to him, the petitioner was fully aware or all the facts and since the making of the two orders, the bank had not collected any further lease rentals and therefore, there was no question of intimating the petitioner in terms of the order dated January 4, 1999. He argued that this application was in fact in application for review and since it had not been made in compliance with the formalities for making such application, it well being termed as a modification application and as such the application was not maintainable.

5. I have already indicated by quoting portion from the order dated January 4, 1999 that prima facie the bona fide of the allegation made by the bank was less than satisfactory. In the order dated March 25, 1999, I had recorded in no certain terms that Counsel for the bank had, "submitted that the bank had not as set collected upto