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2019 (8) TMI 1895 - HC - Indian LawsRecovery of dues - seeking a direction to the Debts Recovery Tribunal-1, Ahmedabad to frame, consider and decide as preliminary issues, the issues raised by the petitioners in their pleadings of Original Application. Whether the Debts Recovery Tribunal is empowered to decide issues as preliminary issues? - HELD THAT:- Prima facie, the Act does not contemplate deciding issues as preliminary issues by the Debts Recovery Tribunal. This is more so considering the object behind the enactment, viz., setting up of Special Tribunals for recovery of dues of the banks and financial institutions by following a summary procedure. The intention of the legislature in enacting the Act is to provide for expeditious adjudication and recovery of debts due to banks and financial institutions; therefore, if all the provisions of the Code are applied to proceedings before the Debts Recovery Tribunal, it would defeat the very object of the enactment. Nonetheless, while ordinarily the Debts Recovery Tribunal should not decide issues as preliminary issues, in the opinion of this court, if the issue raised is one which goes to the root of the matter and strikes at the very jurisdiction of the Tribunal to decide the application, the court is of the view that the Tribunal is not barred from deciding such issue as a preliminary issue merely because section 22 of the Act does not specifically refer to the power to frame and decide preliminary issues. However, such power should be exercised sparingly, only in cases where the question of the jurisdiction of the Debts Recovery Tribunal to decide the case is involved. Whether the issues proposed by the petitioners can be said to be pure questions of law? - HELD THAT:- In the present case, the petitioners do not admit that the averments made in the application under section 19 of the Act are true. However, they contend that because the petitioners (original defendants) admitted the documents on which the respondents (original applicants) rely, they are entitled to raise a plea in the nature of demurer. In the opinion of this court, such plea of demurer would be available to the petitioners if they had admitted the averments made in the application and the questions were required to be decided on the basis thereof. However, the preliminary issues proposed by the petitioners are based on the contents of the documents tendered by the respondents which the petitioners have admitted, and which both the parties seek to interpret differently, and not on the basis of the averments made in the application under section 19 of the Act. Under the circumstances, the petitioners are not entitled to the plea of demurer. Whether even if the issues proposed by the petitioners are pure questions of law, can they be decided as preliminary issues as contemplated under Order XIV rule 2 of the Code? - HELD THAT:- In the facts of the present case, the petitioners have not contended that the Tribunal lacks the jurisdiction to entertain and decide the application under section 19 of the Act; the preliminary issues raised by the petitioners do not touch upon the jurisdiction of the Tribunal to decide the application made by the respondents; and it has also not been contended that the proceedings are barred by any provision of law. Under the circumstances, considering the nature of the issues raised by the petitioners as preliminary issues, even if the same were pure questions of law, the same would not fall within the scope and ambit of Order XIV rule 2 of the Code - this court is in agreement with the view adopted by the Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal and does not find any legal infirmity in the impugned order so as to warrant interference. The petition, therefore, fails and is, accordingly, dismissed.
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