Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal Empowered to Condone Delay under Section 18(1) of the SARFAESI Act, 2002- An Analysis of Supreme Court of India’s decision in Baleshwar Dayal Jaiswal vs Bank of India

Introduction Hon’ble Division Bench of the Supreme Court comprising of Their Lordships Jagdish Singh Khekar and Adarsh Kumar Goel JJ dealt with a very important and an interesting question of law in this batch of appeals3 . The question was whether the DRAT as constituted under the SARFAESI has the power to condone delay in filing of the appeal. Section 18(1) of the SARFAESI Act empowers the DRAT to hear appeals but does not speak about the power of delay condonation by the DRAT. Whereas the DRAT as constituted under the RDDB Act, 1993 does have the power to condone delay and has been explicitly been provided for. 4DRAT is empowered to hear matters under both RDDB Act and the SARFAESI Act but only the RDDB Act expressly provides for delay condonation powers and not SARFAESI. Hence adjudication of this question whether the DRAT has power of delay condonation under the SARFAESI Act had to be decided upon.