Important Points:
since neither the SARFAESI Act or the RDB Act prohibits amendments to pleadings, the DRT is well within its powers to consider applications for such purpose, on the basis of the procedural guidelines available from Order 6, Rule 17 of the CPC, and to consider if such amendments be allowed or otherwise. However, while doing so, the DRT must exercise requisite circumspection and be careful not to allow amendments carrying challenge to the subsequent measures/steps taken by a Bank/Financial Institution, if they have been made beyond the period of limitation for making such challenge through a fresh Securitisation Application; though amendments to the pleadings, without a prayer against it, to bring on record subsequent events/steps, may be possible.

1. The Debts Recovery Tribunal, Ernakulam (hereinafter referred to as the DRT for brevity), has apparently taken a view, in the order impugned in this Original Petition, that a pending Securitisation Application (SA), filed under the provisions of Section 17 of the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Securities Interest Act (SARFAESI Act for convenience), cannot be amended by the applicant to incorporate a challenge against subsequent action/steps taken by a Bank or Financial Institution under the said Act, either because the earlier measures, assailed in the SA, had matured into the next stage pending lis or if it had not borne fruit, as was expected by them.

2. The DRT, Relying on the judgment of another learned Judge of this Court in Sidheek A.V v. Authorised Officer, Federal Bank, M.G.Road Branch (2017 [5] KHC 373), appears to have concluded that every subsequent measure/action taken by the Bank/Financial Institution gives rise to a new cause of action, amenable to an independent challenge through a fresh Securitisation Application; and axiomatically, therefore, that an amendment to the pending SA, to bring on record pleadings and reliefs consequent to such measure/action becomes unnecessary and impermissible.

3. The petitioners in this O.P calls into question the afore rationale of the DRT, as being erroneous and thus unsustainable in law.

4. It is the petitioners' singular contention that the conclusions of the DRT are on account of a bonafide misdirection since in Sidheek A.V (supra) this Court had made no declaration that it cannot allow amendments to a pending SA, to bring into its fold challenge to subsequent measures/steps or to bring on record developments pending such lis.

5. I will consider the forensic worth of these contentions after I notice the requisite facts.

6. The petitioners concede to be the borrowers of certain sums from the respondent -Bank and submits that when measures were taken by the said Bank, for recovery of certain amounts allegedly due from them, invoking the provisions of the SARFAESI Act, they had filed SA No.498 of 2018 before the DRT assailing such action and in particular, the notice dated 23.11.2018, issued by the Bank for sale of the secured assets on 31.12.2018. They say that even though the DRT did not interdict the sale, there were no bidders on that day and consequently, that the Bank notified a second sale notice, dated 05.02.2019, scheduling such sale to 27.02.2019.

7. The petitioners submit that since the Bank obviously had issued the second sale notice pending the aforementioned SA and had also simultaneously approached the Competent Chief Judicial Magistrate for assistance under Section 14 of the SARFAESI Act, they were constrained to move Exhibit P4 interim application before the DRT, seeking to amend the SA, so as to bring the subsequent events to the notice of the Tribunal, along with additional prayers to have the subsequent sale notice and the proceedings initiated by the Bank under Section 14 of the SARFAESI Act, set aside.

8. The petitioners assert that this was the most logical thing for them to have done because, in the pending SA, the entire recovery action taken by the Bank under the SARFAESI Act, including its attempt to bring the secured assets to sale, had been challenged; and that it was only because the sale notified through the first notice, dated 23/11/2018, had not taken place that the Bank had chosen to issue the second sale notice, dated 05/02/2019.

9. The petitioners predicate that the amendments to the SA, sought through Exhibit P4, are nothing more than the continuation of the cause of action as was originally pleaded in the SA and therefore, that it ought to have been allowed. The petitioners allege that, however, the DRT dismissed the said application, solely being guided by the objections filed by the Bank against Exhibit P4 application, a copy of which has been appended to this OP as Exhibit P5, wherein they re