A cooperative bank is not entitled to invoke the provisions of the SARFAESI Act.

Dipankar Datta, J.

The frantic effort of a daughter to prevent her father's mortgaged property being auctioned has led to presentation of this writ petition dated October 13, 2015 before this Court. It is noted that this litigation has been preceded by several previous rounds of litigation before various fora in Hyderabad not only at her instance but also at the instance of others (which includes her father and brother).

2. The petitioner has questioned the authority of the first respondent (hereafter the "Bank") to initiate proceedings under the Securitization and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act (hereafter the SARFAESI Act) on the ground that the "Bank" being a cooperative bank, is not entitled to take recourse to the SARFAESI Act for recovery of its secured debt, and that the recovery process, if any, that has been initiated is without jurisdiction.

3. The litigation has a long and chequered history which, however, need not be discussed in any great detail here, since each and every proceeding at the instance of the petitioner (except me) and others has been noted with meticulous care in the decision dated April 24, 2015 passed in W.P. 7769 of 2015 (between Mr. Inder Raj Agarwal and Union of India and others) by an Hon'ble Division Bench of the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad for the State of Telangana and for the State of Andhra Pradesh (hereafter the High Court at Hyderabad). This Bench proposes to refer to such decision at a later part of this judgment.

4. For the present, it would be useful if the case run in the writ petition is traced first. It is pleaded in the writ petition that there was a loan transaction between the "Bank" and the second respondent (hereafter the partnership firm), of which the third to fifth respondents were the partners; that, the sixth respondent stood as guarantor for such loan; that, the "Bank" had sanctioned a loan of Rs. 45 lakhs in favour of the partnership firm and a property measuring 200 sq. yards situated at Fatehnagar, Balanagar Mandal, Hyderabad (hereafter the said property) was mortgaged as the security for such loan; that, the petitioner was not a party to the loan transaction between the "Bank" and the partnership firm, despite being a joint owner in respect thereof; and that, the said property was put up for sale by the "Bank", although it is an ancestral and joint family property over which no mortgage could have been created, without the petitioner's consent, being a co-owner. It is further pleaded that the "Bank" having initiated proceedings under the SARFAESI Act by issuing notices dated November 11, 2010 and December 14, 2013, the petitioner had approached the Debts Recovery Tribunal at Hyderabad (hereafter the DRT) by filing an application under section 17 (S.A. No. 185 of 2013) whereupon a conditional interim order was passed, inter alia, requiring her to make periodical deposits for having a stay of the proceedings. Feeling aggrieved thereby, the petitioner had approached the Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal at Kolkata (hereafter the DRAT), being the seventh respondent, with an appeal under section 18 of the SARFAESI Act (Appeal No. 71 of 2013) together with an application for waiver of pre-deposit. It was claimed therein that since the "Bank" could not have invoke the provisions of the SARFAESI Act, the petitioner had no obligation to make any pre-deposit for having the appeal heard. The DRAT while disbelieving the averments of the petitioner that she is "one of the coparceners of the joint family" and holding that the petitioner should not be exempted from making pre-deposit, passed an order dated July 15, 2014 overruling her claim and directed her to deposit Rs. 57 lakhs towards pre-deposit by the end of the month failing which the appeal would stand deregistered.

5. Based on such pleadings, the petitioner has prayed for the following relief:

"a. A writ in the nature of certiorari setting aside the notices dated 11