INTERNATIONAL ARC PVT LTD vs INDIAN OVERSEAS BANK on 19 August 2026

ORDER

1. This application has been filed by the Petitioner / 1st defendant praying to recall the recovery certificate bearing TRC No.843 of 2022 (Old DRC

No.190/2017) dated 18.08.2017 on the file of this Tribunal and consequently direct the Registry to redraw and issue a fresh recovery certificate after adjusting the sum of Rs.35,70,697.50p received by the 1st respondent / Applicant during the pendency of the Original Application.

2. The Registry has placed this application before the Bench for hearing on the question of maintainability.

3. The objection of the Registry is that: “It is seen from the records that the application for condonation of delay filed along with the review application has been dismissed. In view of the dismissal of the application for condonation of delay filed along with the Review Application, clarify the maintainability of the present application seeking substantially similar reliefs without disclosing any independent source of jurisdiction. Hence this IA may be returned along with IA Dy No.1661/26 for compliance”

4. In reply to the same, the Ld. Counsel for the Petitioner has submitted as follows:- “The above IA diary no.1658/2026 has been filed to recall the recovery certificate. It was returned on 03.08.2026 stating that the review petition filed against the final order of OA/748/2021 was dismissed and therefore directing the petitioner herein to clarify the maintainability of the present application seeking substantially similar relief without disclosing any independent source of jurisdiction. The review application was filed to review the order dated 04.04.2017 made in OA/748/2021 on facts and law. The review was filed under Section 22(2)(e) of the RDB Act and Rule 5A of the debts recovery tribunal procedural rules. The OA order specifically directed the registry to issue recovery certificate after adjustment of the amounts realized during the pendency of the OA before issuing the recovery certificate. However the registry issued the recovery certificate for the entire suit claim amount of Rs.65,44,502.50 without adjusting the sum of Rs.35,70,697.50 paid by the defendants during the pendency of the OA itself. The said payment has been recorded in the final order itself. It resulted in a recovery certificate for the whole amount including the amount received during the pendency of the OA. The Recovery Certificate was issued by the registry of DRT and the validity of the recovery certificate cannot be challenged before the Recovery Officer, since it is the mistake of the Registry of the DRT the necessary correction can be made by the registry only. Therefore the present petition has been filed under Section 26(2) & Section 27(4) of the Recovery of Debts and Bankruptcy Act, 1993. The cause of action for filing the review petition is different from the present petition to recall the recovery certificate.

Therefore, the present petition is maintainable. There is one more aspect. As regards the maintainability is concerned, the Hon’ble Supreme Court and the Hon’ble High Court of Madras have categorically held that the registry cannot reject a petition for maintainability. If there is any doubt with regard to maintainability, the registry has to number the application subject to maintainability and post the case before the court / tribunal. The judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court made in in SLP Crl. No.1832 of 2019 and the judgment of the Hon’ble Madras High Court in WP. SR. 49938 of 2026 are enclosed. Since urgent orders are required the registry is requested to number the application and post the case before the Hon’ble Tribunal without any delay.”

5. Heard the Ld. Counsel for the Petitioner / 1st defendant.

Point for Consideration

6. The following question arises for consideration: “Whether the present application filed under Sections 26(2) and 27(4) of the Recovery of Debts and Bankruptcy Act, 1993 seeking recall/withdrawal and re-drawing of the Recovery Certificate is maintainable, notwithstanding the dismissal of the application for condonation of delay filed along with the Review Application, and, if so, whether the petitioner has satisfactorily explained the inordinate delay in seeking such relief?” Answer to the Point for Consideration

7. At the outset, it is necessary to examine the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner that the present application is founded upon a cause of action different from that which was the subject matter of the Review Application. According to the petitioner, the Review Application was directed against the final order dated 04.04.2017 passed in OA/748/2021, whereas the present application is directed against the Recovery Certificate issued thereafter by the Registry, without giving credit to the sum of Rs.35,70,697.50 allegedly received during the pendency of the Original Application. It is therefore contended that the present application is not a second review of the final order, but an application for correction/withdrawal of an erroneous Recovery Certificate.

8. There is considerable force in the submission that Section 26(2) of the RDB Act confers power upon the Presiding Officer, notwithstanding issuance of a certificate to the Recovery Officer, to withdraw the certificate or correct any clerical or arithmetical mistake in the certificate and intimate such correction to the Recovery Officer. Section 26(1) also makes it clear that the correctness of the amount specified in the certificate cannot be disputed before the Recovery Officer. Thus, where the grievance is specifically against the amount incorporated in the Recovery Certificate, the statutory scheme does recognise the jurisdiction of the Presiding Officer in relation to withdrawal or correction of the certificate.

9. However, the existence of jurisdiction under Section 26(2) cannot be considered in isolation from the facts and circumstances in which the present application has been filed. The Court is required to examine whether the present proceeding is genuinely an application for correction of the Recovery Certificate on account of a clerical/arithmetical error, or whether it is, in substance and effect, an attempt to reopen the final order passed in the Original Application after the petitioner failed to obtain relief in the Review Application.

10. The records, as narrated by the petitioner itself, assume considerable significance in this regard. The petitioner states that the alleged defect in the final order as well as the Recovery Certificate came to its notice on receipt of the demand notice issued by the Recovery Officer dated 23.08.2017. It is therefore not a case where the petitioner came to know of the alleged mistake only recently. The petitioner admittedly became aware of the alleged discrepancy as early as August, 2017.

11. The petitioner further states that, immediately thereafter, it filed Review Petition bearing SR No.5888 of 2017 before DRT-I, accompanied by an application for condonation of delay of 125 days, which was assigned IA SR No.6253 of 2017. According to the petitioner, the said application was argued and, to the best of its knowledge and belief, no orders were passed thereon. It is further stated that the petitioner continuously followed up the matter with the Registry and was informed that the records pertaining to the case had been misplaced and could not be traced and, therefore, the Review Petition could not be effectively processed or adjudicated.

12. This explanation, however, does not satisfactorily account for the subsequent conduct of the petitioner. The petitioner was admittedly aware of the alleged error from 23.08.2017. It had also invoked the jurisdiction of this Tribunal by filing a Review Petition specifically complaining of the very error which, according to it, has ultimately resulted in issuance of the Recovery Certificate for the entire claim amount.

13. More importantly, the petitioner now seeks to contend that the dismissal of the application for condonation of delay filed along with the Review Petition was not within its knowledge. Such a contention, in the facts of the present case, cannot be readily accepted. The petitioner was the party who instituted the Review proceedings and the accompanying application for condonation of delay. Once the petitioner had invoked the jurisdiction of the Tribunal and the application was taken up for consideration, it was incumbent upon the petitioner to diligently ascertain the status and outcome of the proceedings. A litigant who invokes a judicial remedy cannot remain indefinitely passive and subsequently contend, after several years, that it was unaware of the fate of the very application filed by it.

14. The expression “to the best of my knowledge and belief, no orders have been passed” is, by itself, insufficient to establish that the petitioner was genuinely unaware of the dismissal of the application for condonation of delay. No particulars have been furnished as to the dates on which the petitioner or its counsel followed up the matter, the nature of the enquiries made before the Registry, or any steps taken before the Tribunal to ascertain the status of IA SR No.6253 of 2017. Equally, no material has been placed to demonstrate that the petitioner was prevented by any circumstance beyond its control from ascertaining the result of the condonation application.

15. The plea that the records had been misplaced in the Registry also cannot, by itself, explain the entire period of inaction. Even assuming that there was some administrative difficulty in tracing the records, the petitioner, having knowledge of the alleged defect and having already invoked the remedy of review, was expected to pursue the matter with

reasonable diligence. The mere assertion that the records could not be traced does not justify complete inaction for several years.

16. It is also relevant that the Review Application was itself admittedly filed beyond the prescribed period and was accompanied by an application seeking condonation of delay of 125 days. Rule 5A of the Debts Recovery Tribunal (Procedure) Rules prescribes a specific period for filing a review application and requires the application for review to be filed within the prescribed period. The Supreme Court in Standard Chartered Bank v. MSTC Limited, (2020) 3 SCC 124, has held that the language of Rule 5A is peremptory and that there is no power to condone delay beyond the period prescribed therein.

17. In the present case, the application for condonation of delay filed along with the Review Petition has admittedly been dismissed. Consequently, the Review Petition did not survive for consideration on merits. The petitioner cannot, by merely changing the nomenclature of the relief and invoking Sections 26(2) and 27(4) of the Act, seek to achieve substantially the same result which it failed to obtain in the Review proceedings.

18. At this stage, the distinction sought to be drawn by the petitioner between the Review Application and the present application also requires careful examination. If the Recovery Certificate had merely incorporated an arithmetical mistake independently of the final order,

Section 26(2) could certainly be invoked for correction of such mistake. But if the alleged excess amount in the Recovery Certificate is the direct consequence of the interpretation or implementation of the final order itself, and correction of the certificate would necessarily require reconsideration of the adjudication contained in the final order, the proceeding cannot be permitted to operate as a substitute for a review.

19. The petitioner relies upon the fact that the final order itself allegedly recorded receipt of Rs.35,70,697.50 during the pendency of the Original Application and directed that the amount be adjusted while issuing the Recovery Certificate. If that be so, the question whether the Recovery Certificate correctly reflects the operative portion of the final order may, in an appropriate case, fall within the scope of Section 26(2). However, the present application has been filed after an extraordinary lapse of time from the date on which the petitioner admittedly became aware of the alleged defect.

20. The power under Section 26(2) cannot be construed as conferring an unrestricted and timeless right upon a party to reopen matters which have attained finality. The statutory power to correct or withdraw a certificate is intended to enable the Tribunal to ensure that the certificate faithfully represents the adjudicated liability. It cannot be employed as an indirect mechanism to circumvent the limitation governing review proceedings or to revive a challenge which has already failed on account of delay.

21. The contention of the learned counsel that the Registry cannot decide the question of maintainability deserves separate consideration. The decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in P. Surendran v. State by Inspector of Police, SLP (Crl.) No.1832 of 2019, dated 29.03.2019, does lay down that numbering of a petition is an administrative function and that a question of maintainability requiring judicial application of mind cannot be finally decided by the Registry. The Supreme Court directed the Registry in that case to number the petition and place it before the appropriate Bench.

22. The said principle, however, does not advance the petitioner's case on the merits of maintainability. In the present case, the Registry has not finally adjudicated the maintainability of the application. On the contrary, the Registry has placed the application before the Bench specifically for consideration of the question of maintainability. The petitioner has consequently been heard by the judicial side on the very objection raised by the Registry. The decision in P. Surendran therefore cannot be understood as conferring an independent right upon the petitioner to maintain an otherwise impermissible proceeding; it only makes clear that the judicial question of maintainability is to be decided by the Tribunal and not conclusively by the Registry. The Division Bench of the

Madras High Court has also explained this distinction in M. Rajendran v. Government of India, observing that where the Registry entertains a doubt as to maintainability and places the papers before the Court, it does not thereby exercise judicial power.

23. Thus, this Tribunal is required to decide the maintainability on its own merits. The mere fact that the Registry is not competent to reject the application on the ground of maintainability does not mean that the application has to be entertained notwithstanding the statutory scheme, the previous proceedings and the inordinate delay.

24. In the present case, the petitioner admittedly knew about the alleged discrepancy on 23.08.2017. It thereafter pursued a Review Petition specifically seeking correction of the alleged error, accompanied by an application for condonation of delay. The application for condonation of delay has admittedly been dismissed. The petitioner has not satisfactorily explained why, despite knowledge of the alleged defect from the year 2017, no effective proceeding was pursued for several years and why the present application came to be filed only in the year 2026.

25. The plea that the dismissal of the condonation application was not known to the petitioner cannot be accepted in the absence of convincing and contemporaneous material. The petitioner was the applicant in the said proceeding and was represented by counsel.

Knowledge of the pendency and result of one's own judicial proceeding cannot ordinarily be disclaimed merely by stating that the Registry did not communicate the result. The duty of diligence does not cease merely because the litigant alleges an administrative difficulty in tracing the records.

26. The delay in the present case is therefore not a mere technical delay. It is an inordinate and unexplained delay of several years after the petitioner had admittedly acquired knowledge of the alleged error. The conduct of the petitioner also assumes significance because the very issue was earlier sought to be raised through a Review Petition, which did not survive owing to the dismissal of the application for condonation of delay. 27, Permitting the present application in these circumstances would, in substance, enable the petitioner to circumvent the consequence of the dismissal of the condonation application and to reopen, indirectly, a matter which the petitioner failed to pursue within the prescribed time. Such an approach would defeat the principle of finality of judicial proceedings.

28. At the same time, this Tribunal is conscious that if there is a patent clerical or arithmetical mistake in the Recovery Certificate which is demonstrably contrary to the operative portion of the final order, the Tribunal possesses statutory power under Section 26(2) to correct such mistake. The present finding should not be understood as holding that Section 26(2) can never be invoked after considerable lapse of time. The issue is whether, on the facts of the present case, the petitioner has established a bona fide and independently maintainable proceeding under Section 26(2), as opposed to an attempt to revive the challenge already made through the Review Application.

29. Having regard to the petitioner's admitted knowledge of the alleged defect from 23.08.2017, the filing of the Review Petition on the very same grievance, the dismissal of the application for condonation of delay accompanying the Review Petition, the absence of satisfactory material explaining the prolonged inaction thereafter, and the attempt to secure substantially the same substantive relief through the present proceeding, this Tribunal is of the considered view that the present application cannot be entertained in the manner in which it has been presented.

30. Accordingly, the question framed above is answered against the petitioner. The present application is held to be not maintainable, and, in any event, the petitioner has failed to satisfactorily explain the inordinate delay in seeking the relief now prayed for.

31. In the result, the following:

ORDER

IA Diary No.1658/2026 is rejected as not maintainable. Consequently, the connected application, IA Dy No.1661/2026, does not survive for consideration. The Registry is directed to communicate this order to the parties concerned and place the same in the connected proceedings. Sd/- (SHARANG DHAR UPADHYAY) PRESIDING OFFICER DRT-II, CHENNAI

(Dictated to PS, who typed in the system directly, corrected, signed and pronounced by me in Open Court, on this 19th day of August, 2026)