HIGH COURT FOR THE STATE OF TELANGANA

AT HYDERABAD

THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE NAGESH BHEEMAPAKA

WRIT PETITION No.38416 of 2025

DATE OF ORDER:- 15.12.2025

BETWEEN:

Smt.Yalamanchili Jahnavi,

D/o.Narendra Babu, R/o.Secunderabad.

… Petitioner

AND

Union of India represented by its

Under Secretary, Finance and Planning Department,

New Delhi & 5 others

… Respondents

ORDER:-

1. This Writ Petition is filed under Article 226 of the Constitution

of India seeking the following relief:-

“.. … … to issue an appropriate Writ, Order or Direction more particularly in the nature of Writ of Mandamus declaring the action of respondent Nos.3 & 4 and its recovery agents in threatening and intimidating the petitioner and his family members for non-payment of certain EMIs related Personal Loan Account No.LXHYD18923- 246933991 under the guise of recovery as illegal and arbitrary and in violation of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India and also contrary to the Reserve Bank of India Fair Practices Code and also to direct the respondents 5 & 6 to initiate necessary action as per the report

dated 19.11.2025 lodged by the petitioner and shall ensure that no coercive steps of harassment are caused to the petitioner and further requested to pass interim orders restraining the respondent No.3 and its agents from visiting the petitioner’s residence or to make any threatening calls or acts of intimidation pending disposal of writ petition.

2. Heard Sri S.Sunil Kumar, learned counsel for the petitioner, Sri N.Bhujanga Rao; learned Standing Counsel for Central Government representing respondent No.1; Sri Angothu Nehru, learned Standing Counsel for Central Government representing respondent No.2 and learned Government Pleader for Home representing respondent Nos.5 & 6.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the husband of the petitioner availed personal loan on behalf of the petitioner from respondent No.3-Bank for his business and utilized the said amounts and has been prompt in repaying the same without fail. It is further case of the petitioner that ever since he obtained loan, he had been regularly paying the installments till October, 2024 and due to severe hardship which ruined the financial stability, he could not pay the remaining installments. It is also the case of the petitioner that respondent Nos.3 & 4 without following the guidelines of RBI, has been sending the loan recovery agents to the house of the petitioner and harassing her to pay the amounts due as per the calculation of respondents.

4. The grievance of the petitioner is that the respondents are entitled to recover loan amount in terms of the loan agreements by following the procedure established under law and they are not having any right to recover the loan amount by using force.

5. The issues raised in this Writ Petition are no longer res integra as the Hon’ble Supreme Court in ICICI Bank Ltd. vs.Prakash Kaur and others, (2007) 2 SCC 711, while dealing with the similar issues where the banks engaged the services of recovery/collection agents to recover the loans, observed as follows:-

“16. Before we part with this matter, we wish to make it clear that we do not appreciate the procedure adopted by the Bank in 1 (2007) 2 SCC 711 3 CVBR, J Wp_5200_2024 removing the vehicle from the possession of the writ petitioner. The practice of hiring recovery agents, who are musclemen, is deprecated and needs to be discouraged. The Bank should resort to procedure recognised by law to take possession of vehicles in cases where the borrower may have committed default in payment of the instalments instead of taking resort to strong-arm tactics.”

6. Aggressive recovery tactics adopted by the agents of Banks/Financial Institutions lead to the landmark judgment in ICICI Bank vs. Shanti Devi Sharma and others, (2008) 7 SCC 532, where the Hon’ble Supreme Court directed the Banks/Financial Institutions to strictly follow the guidelines issued by the Reserve Bank of India.

7. In the above referred judgments, the Ho