Point of Law: Powers of High Court under Article 226 cannot be invoked in matter of recovery of dues under Act, unless there is any statutory violation resulting in prejudice to party or where such proceedings or action is wholly arbitrary, unreasonable and unfair.

ORDER :

Since, both these petitions have been filed with identical prayers, therefore, they were taken up together for consideration and are being disposed of by a common judgment.

2. At the outset, the substantive prayers as made in these petitions need to be noticed and the same read as under:-

CWP No. 5743 of 2022.

“(i) That the impugned Order dated 01.06.2022 passed by Ld. Debt Recovery Tribunal-1, Chandigarh in OA 184/2006, Annexure P-6, may kindly be set aside and quashed.

(ii) That the IAs filed by the petitioner Annexure P-3 may kindly be directed to be decided within a time bound manner.”

CWP No. 5744 of 2022.

“(i) That the impugned Order dated 01.06.2022 passed by Ld. Debt Recovery Tribunal-1, Chandigarh in OA 185/2006, Annexure P-10, may kindly be set aside and quashed.

(ii) That the IAs filed by the petitioners Annexure P-3 and Annexure P-4 may kindly be directed to be decided within a time bound manner.”

3. As would be noticed from the prayers reproduced hereinabove, the petitioner(s) have questioned the order passed by the Debts Recovery Tribunal-I, Chandigarh, on various grounds. But the question is whether these petitions would be maintainable when an alternative remedy is available to the petitioner(s) under Section 20 of The Recovery of Debts Due to Banks and Financial Institutions Act, 1993, (for short ‘Act’) which provides for an appeal before the Appellate Tribunal.

4. The issue is no longer res integra in view of the various judgments of the Hon’ble Supreme Court on the subject, some of which are noticed and cited in this order.

5. We may conveniently refer to a judgment rendered by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Punjab National Bank vs. O.C. Krishnan and others (2001) 6 SCC 569, wherein it was observed as under:-

“5. In our opinion, the order which was passed by the Tribunal directing sale of mortgaged property was appealable under Section 20 of the Recovery of Debts Due to Banks and Financial Institutions Act, 1993 (for short "the Act"). The High Court ought not to have exercised its jurisdiction under Article 227 in view of the provision for alternative remedy contained in the Act. We Jo not propose to go into the correctness of the decision of the High Court an I whether the order passed by the Tribunal was correct or not has to be decided before an appropriate forum.

6. The Act has been enacted with a view to provide a special procedure for recovery of debts due to the banks and the financial institutions. There is hierarchy of appeal provided in the Act, namely, filing of an appeal under Section 20 and this last track procedure cannot be allowed to be derailed either b> taking recourse to proceedings under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution or by filing a civil suit, which is expressly barred. Even though a provision court under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution, nevertheless when there is an alternative remedy available judicial prudence demands that the court refrains from exercising its jurisdiction under the said constitutional provisions. This was a case where the High Court should not have entertained the petition under Article 227 of the Constitution and should have directed the respondent to take recourse to the appeal mechanism provided by the Act.”

6. Similar reiteration of law can be found in the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in State Bank of India vs. Allied Chemical Laboratories and another (2006) 9 SCC 252.

7. This judgment in turn has been followed and relied upon by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in a fairly recent judgment rendered in Phoenix ARC Private Limited vs. Vishwa Bharati Vidya Mandir and others (2022) 5 SCC 345. It shall be profitable to extract the relevant observations made in paras 8 to 21 of the judgment which read as under:-

“8. It is the case on behalf of the appellant that the writ petitions against the communication dated 13.08.2015 proposing to take further action under Section 13(4) of the SARFAESI Act and that too against a private Assets Reconstructing Company (A