The Bombay High Court on Monday pulled up the Centre over the non-functioning of the Mumbai-based Debts Recovery Tribunal, PTI reported. The court asked if Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was sleeping while condemning the shutdown of the tribunal’s Mumbai office since a fire engulfed Scindia House, the building it was housed in, on June 1.
The tribunal housed documents and evidence related to many cases, involving the Nirav Modi loan default, banks, financial institutions and their customers.
A division bench of justices AS Oka and Riyaz Chagla rebuked the Centre while hearing a petition filed by the Debts Recovery Tribunal Bar Association. The organisation asked the court to direct the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government to allot another space for the tribunal’s Mumbai office.
The court asked the Centre to specify when it would allot a space to the tribunal. “The government should be doing all this on their own, instead of the matter coming before us and the court passing orders,” Justice Oka said. “In the financial capital of the country, the Debts Recovery Tribunal is not functioning.”
The High Court scheduled the next hearing for July 25 and asked the Centre to submit details for the new tribunal’s office by then.
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