Tenant’s Injunction Suit Survives SARFAESI Challenge After Buyer Shows No Material Of Proceedings: P&H HC

Respondent No. 1 filed a suit for permanent injunction to protect his possession of the first-floor portion of a building in Amritsar, described as tenanted premises.

The petitioner filed a counterclaim asserting that he had purchased the entire property, including the premises, at a bank auction.

He later applied under Order VII Rule 11 CPC to reject the plaint, arguing that the suit was barred by Sections 14, 17 and 34 of the SARFAESI Act, 2002.

The Trial Court dismissed the application, noting, among other things, that no supporting material concerning SARFAESI proceedings had been produced and that the suit did not challenge any action under that Act.

In the revision petition, the petitioner did not place a copy of the plaint on the record or show it to the High Court.

Under Order VII Rule 11 CPC, the court must assess the plaint’s averments; the defendant’s pleadings are immaterial, and the power to reject a plaint must be exercised in accordance with the rule’s specified conditions (Shakti Bhog Food Industries Ltd. v. Central Bank of India, 2020 SCC OnLine SC 482).

Section 34 of the SARFAESI Act bars civil-court jurisdiction over matters that the DRT or DRAT is empowered to determine and restricts injunctions concerning such matters; Section 35 gives the Act overriding effect over inconsistent laws.

A civil-court jurisdiction bar is not readily inferred and must be strictly construed (Dwarka Prasad Agarwal v. Ramesh Chander Agarwal, (2003) 6 SCC 220).

The Court also referred to Central Bank of India v. Prabha Jain, (2025) 4 SCC 38, concerning the DRT’s statutory powers, and Ajay Solanki v. Parvesh Kumar, SLP (C) No. 13655 of 2024, decided 11 July 2024, for the proposition that an objection to maintainability does not strictly fall within Order VII Rule 11 CPC.

The High Court could not independently examine the plaint because the petitioner had neither filed nor shown it, and therefore relied on the Trial Court’s account of the suit.

That account showed a claim for protection of possession and no challenge to any action taken under the SARFAESI Act.

The petitioner also produced no material establishing that proceedings under the Act were being carried out.

In those circumstances, the petitioner had not shown that the suit concerned a matter within the DRT’s statutory jurisdiction or that the plaint disclosed a bar warranting rejection under Order VII Rule 11.

The Court further noted that a maintainability objection did not, by itself, strictly fall within that provision.

The civil revision petition was dismissed, and any pending applications were closed.