MUMBAI, 4 MAY, 2023 (GPN): Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd is in the business of giving loans and in the event borrowers commit default, Indiabulls initiates recovery proceedings, including selling the property, which is mortgaged by borrowers to secure the loan.  Such sales are done under the provisions of the SARFAESI Act, and this Act gives protection to officers of the lending bank / NBFC from prosecution. In some instances, defaulting borrowers to evade repayment and stalling recovery proceedings file criminal cases against their lender to exert pressure.

 

In such an earlier criminal matter in which an FIR was registered against Indiabulls and its officials in West Bengal on a false complaint by a defaulting borrower. Indiabulls filed a petition in the Hon’ble Supreme Court that was pleased to grant stay of the criminal proceedings. One must note that since the police registered the FIR, the State of West Bengal was made a respondent.

 

Two more defaulting borrowers against whom Indiabulls had initiated recovery proceedings under SARFAESI Act filed misplaced and false criminal cases. Recently, one of them, namely Shipra Group, was trying to resist the loan recovery by Indiabulls, and they filed civil cases to stall the recovery by us. Multiple unsuccessful attempts were made by Shipra in various courts, which included 2 Securitization Applications before Debt Recovery Tribunal in Lucknow, 3 writ petitions before the Allahabad High Court, petitions before High Court of Delhi, 2 Special Leave Petitions before the Supreme Court, all of which were dismissed.

 

Frustrated at being unsuccessful in getting relief before various courts, Shipra, without disclosing the above civil proceedings, filed a blatantly false complaint in Ghaziabad based on which an FIR was registered against officials of Indiabulls.

 

Kindly note Loans granted to Shipra group were secured by securities including mortgage of the fully paid Noida land owned by Kadam Developers and pledge of shares of Kadam. The mortgage was created with the prior ‘Permission to Mortgage’ dated 9.1.2018 granted by the authority YEIDA (copy attached). Consequent to defaults under the loans, the lender exercised its rights for recovering the overdue amounts in order to secure public money. The shares of Kadam Developers was done by invoking the pledge created by the borrowers. Such sale of shares of Kadam Developers and its valuation has been upheld by the Hon’ble Delhi High Court vide its order dated 20.5.2021 (copy attached). The authority was also a party to the litigation before the Hon’ble Delhi High Court. The lender is well within its rights to strongly contest any coercive steps taken by the authority against the lender.

Against the above action of police in Ghaziabad, Indiabulls again approached the Supreme Court, and as the issue was similar to the earlier one in West Bengal petition, the matters were heard together. When the petition was heard, the Hon’ble Court was pleased to grant a stay of all proceedings in the 3 FIRs that Indiabulls had challenged. These FIRs were the ones in West Bengal, one in Ghaziabad and another one in Delhi. The matter is next listed on 16th May 2023.