High Courts cannot direct expeditious disposal of Section 17(1) applications bypassing the Section 17(6) remedy.

The appellants were borrowers who had availed a loan facility originally granted by RBL Bank Limited, subsequently assigned to Pegasus Assets Reconstruction Private Limited (“Pegasus”).

The appellants challenged Pegasus’s recovery measures under Section 17(1) of the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002 (“SARFAESI Act”) before the Debts Recovery Tribunal, Jabalpur, in S.A. No. 772/2022. During the pendency of the securitisation application, the District Magistrate passed an order under Section 14 of the SARFAESI Act on 6 June 2023. The DRT thereafter directed the appellants to deposit ₹1.25 crore and stayed the District Magistrate’s order pending further proceedings.

Pegasus filed W.P. No. 23663/2026 seeking, inter alia, expeditious disposal of the securitisation application. The Writ Court declined to vacate the interim protection but directed the DRT to decide S.A. No. 772/2022 expeditiously, preferably within three months. The borrowers challenged that direction in the present writ appeal.

Whether the Writ Court could directly direct the DRT to expedite disposal of an application under Section 17(1) of the SARFAESI Act without Pegasus first invoking the specific remedy under Section 17(6) before the Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal (“DRAT”)?

Whether the involvement of public money or the supervisory jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution justified bypassing the statutory mechanism under Section 17(6) of the SARFAESI Act?

Whether the Supreme Court’s decision in Indian Overseas Bank v. M/s Radhey Infra Solutions (Pvt.) Ltd. & Others supported the Writ Court’s direction?

Section 17(5) of the SARFAESI Act requires an application under Section 17(1) to be dealt with expeditiously and ordinarily disposed of within sixty days, subject to extension for recorded reasons, with the total pendency not exceeding four months.

Section 17(6) provides a specific statutory remedy whereby, if the application is not disposed of within the prescribed period, a party may apply to the DRAT, which may direct the DRT to dispose of the pending application expeditiously.

The Court applied the principle that where a statute provides a specialised and efficacious mechanism for obtaining a particular relief, parties should ordinarily pursue that remedy instead of directly invoking the writ jurisdiction to circumvent it.

The Court distinguished Indian Overseas Bank v. M/s Radhey Infra Solutions (Pvt.) Ltd. & Others, which concerned enforcement of the statutory mandate under Section 17(5) and did not consider the availability or effect of the remedy under Section 17(6).

The Court held that Section 17(6) specifically empowered the DRAT—not the High Court in the first instance—to consider a request for expeditious disposal after the statutory period under Section 17(5) had elapsed.

Pegasus had not invoked that remedy and had, in its writ petition, failed to disclose the availability of Section 17(6), while asserting that it had exhausted all available remedies.

The Court considered the DRAT better equipped to assess the circumstances of a pending Section 17(1) application and to determine whether an expeditious-disposal direction was warranted.

The general consideration that public money was involved could not justify directing the DRT to prioritise a particular matter in disregard of the statutory mechanism, since public money would be involved in most DRT proceedings.

The reliance on Radhey Infra Solutions was rejected because that decision addressed only Section 17(5) and did not deal with Section 17(6).

The High Court set aside the Writ Court’s order dated 15 July 2026 directing the DRT to expedite S.A. No. 772/2022 and granted Pegasus liberty to pursue the remedy under Section 17(6) of the SARFAESI Act before the DRAT.

The Court clarified that it had expressed no opinion on the merits of the pending securitisation proceedings.