A Chief Judicial Magistrate's powers under Section 14 of the SARFAESI Act are purely ministerial and do not involve adjudication.

JUDGMENT

This original petition is filed with the following prayers :-

“1. Set aside Exhibit P36 and Exhibit P37 orders dated 19.12.2017 of the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Ernakulam.

2. To grant such other reliefs as this Honourable Court may deem fit and proper to meet the ends of justice.” [SIC]

2. The petitioner challenged Exts.P36 and P37. As per Ext.P36, the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Ernakulam, invoking the powers under Section 14 of the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002 (for short, ‘ SARFAESI Act ’), directed to make necessary arrangements to enable the petitioner therein (6^th respondent herein) to remove the movable items within a period of ten days. As per Ext.P37, the learned Magistrate directed the respondent Bank (petitioner herein) to restore possession of the secured asset/subject matter property to the petitioner/6^th respondent within a period of two weeks.

Aggrieved by the same, this original petition is filed.

3. The learned counsel for the petitioner - Bank raised a short point. It is submitted that as per Section 14 of the SARFAESI Act , the Magistrate has no adjudicatory jurisdiction, but only ministerial jurisdiction. The learned counsel relied on the judgment of this Court inFederal Bank Limited, Kallai Branch, Kozhikode v. Chief Judicial Magistrate, Kozhikode [ 2025 (3) KHC 604 ]. The learned counsel also submitted that the 6^th respondent approached the Debt Recovery Tribunal with a Securitisation Application (SA) under Section 17 of the SARFAESI Act for restoration of the property and the same was dismissed. It is also submitted by the learned counsel that the 6^th respondent also approached this Court for restoration of property by filing W.P.(C) No.15956/2017 and this Court also dismissed the same. Therefore, it is submitted that Exts.P36 and P37 are illegal. The learned counsel also submitted that as per Ext.P19, the Commissioner already handed over the movable properties, in which, the 6^th respondent also signed. The learned counsel for the 6^th respondent supported the impugned orders.

4. This Court considered the contentions of the petitioner and the learned counsel appearing for the 6^th respondent. This Court perused the impugned orders. The jurisdiction of the Chief Judicial Magistrate under Section 14 was considered by this Court in Federal Bank’s case (supra). It will be better to extract the relevant portion of the above judgment, which reads thus :-

“5. Having heard the learned counsel as above, I am certain that the petitioner is entitled to succeed. The power exercised by a Magistrate under S.14 of the SARFAESI Act has been the subject matter of many decisions of the Supreme Court. In Indian Bank v. D. Visalakshi ; (2019) 20 SCC 47 it was held :-

“36. SufÏce it to observe that an inquiry conducted by the stated authority under S.14 of the 2002 Act, is a sui generis inquiry. In that, majorly it is an administrative or executive function regarding verification of the afÏdavit and the relied upon documents filed by the parties. That inquiry is required to be concluded within the stipulated time-frame. While undertaking such an inquiry, as it observed by this Court, the authority must display judicious approach, in considering the relevant factual position asserted by the parties. That presupposes that it is a quasi – judicial inquiry though, a non – judicial process. The inquiry does not result in adjudication of inter se rights of the parties in respect of the subject property or of the fact that the transaction is a fraudulent one or otherwise.”

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39. Now we may turn to the decision in Standard Chartered Bank. The Court was called upon to consider the argument that secured creditor before invoking the remedy under S. 14 of th