IMPORTANT POINTS
Hon'ble Supreme Court has held that High Courts should not entertain writ petitions in matters of recovery of loan amounts. When the writ petitioner/respondent has sought for a mandamus, directing the Bank to allow six months' time to pay off the entire outstanding home loan, Bank conceded to the prayer and accordingly, by judgment in W.P. (C) No. 17959 of 2019 dated 2.7.2019, writ court has granted six months' time. As pointed out by the learned counsel for the Bank, writ court has made it clear that writ petitioner/ respondent has to comply with the assurance made and that no further request for modification of the judgment will be permitted save in exceptional circumstances and that if writ petitioner/respondent fails to comply with the directions in the judgment, he will lose the benefit of judgment.

JUDGMENT :

S. MANIKUMAR, J.

1. Challenge in this writ appeal is to the order made in I.A. No. 1 of 2020 in W.P. (C) No. 17959 of 2019 dated 8.1.2020, by which, the learned single Judge has granted two months' time to pay off the liability, in terms of the judgment rendered earlier in W.P. (C) No. 17959 of 2019.

2. Short facts leading to the appeal are that: 1st respondent is availed certain loans from ICICI Bank, appellants herein. When there is default, the Bank has issued Ext.P2 notice demanding a sum of Rs. 5,29,037/- which reads thus:

“ICICI Bank

WITHOUT – PREJUDICE

June 25, 2019

Mr. Nassaruddin Abdul Majeed

Pallikunnel House, X/199

Nettoor P.O.

Near Concord Motors,

Ernakulam

Ernakulam-682 304

Madam/Dear Sir,

Sub: Pending dues in your Home Loan Agreement No. LBCOC00002914979

We wish to state that you had approached the Bank for availing a Home loan. Pursuant to our consideration of your application, a Home loan was disbursed/sanctioned to you and an agreement was thereafter executed with you for availing the said loan facility to the tune of Rs. 35,62,500/- on the terms and condition more particularly stated therein. While applying for the said loan facility, you had inter alia agreed to abide by the terms and conditions governing the above said agreement and/or agreed to make repayment of such loan amount availed by you, by paying necessary equated monthly installments on its due dates, which is the essence of the said agreement. Further, as per the terms and conditions of the said agreement, the property detailed as HOUSE is mortgaged to the bank as security towards repayment of the loan/credit facility by way of first, exclusive and paramount charge created in favor of the Bank. The said security is enforceable by the Bank on the events of any default as contemplated by the said agreement.

We regret to state that, consequent to the series of defaults committed by you in paying the loan installments, compensation on the delayed/arrears of the installments as called upon vide our several notices and reminder on previous dates.

In this connection, we would like to draw the attention on a Central Act “Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002 (hereinafter referred to as SARFAESI) that has been passed and enforced across the country. This Act has conferred statutory power on the Banks and Financial Institutions to take possession of the Assets as mentioned hereinafter. Under this Act after service of a DEMAND NOTICE by the Bank, if the borrower does not discharge his liabilities in full within the stipulated time period from the date of notice, the Bank shall be entitled to exercise all the rights to take possession of the asset including the right to transfer by way of lease, assignment or sale and realize payment. Bank is also empowered to ATTACH AND SEAL the financed asset before enforcing the right to sale or transfer. Further to the Sale of the attached asset, Bank also has a right to initiate separate legal proceedings to recover the balance dues, in case the value of the asset is insufficient to cover the dues payable to the Bank. This remedy is in addition and independent of all the other remedies available to the lending Bank under any other law.

For your reference and convenience, we are providing herewith the details of your outstanding dues as on June 24, 2019 and would request to clear the same at the earliest to avoid any further inconvenience.

We value your relationship with ICICI Bank and therefore would urge to take serious note of this notice and regularize your loan account within 7 days from the receipt of this notice failing which we shall be constrained to proceed without any further notice to you to exercise our legal remedies availa