The Debt Recovery Tribunal at Chennai, with jurisdiction over Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the Union territories of Pondicherry and Lakshadweep, has recovered a total of Rs 88 crore in its two years of existence.
Of this, Rs 31 crore has been recovered from Kerala while the rest comes from Tamil Nadu.
Only cases involving more than Rs 10 lakh can be referred to the tribunal and, should one of the parties decide to move the appelate tribunal, 75 per cent of the debt amount due from the defendent is to be deposited.
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Such appeals will have to be filed within 45 days of receiving the copy of the order. The tribunal itself is given a six month deadline to dispose off the cases from the date of application.
Giving details of the DRT's functions over the last two years, Justice Durai Kaliyaretnam said, of the 4,737 applications registered before the tribunal, 661 have been disposed off and decreed for recovery a sum of Rs 930.46 crore.
Of this decreed amount, the sum recovered is Rs 88.34 crore and has been disbursed to the banks concerned.
However, actual recovery is hampered by "problems of execution", Kaliyaretnam said. The problem is particularly acute with regard to immovable properties held by defaulters.
The defaulters would go to any length to prevent the property from being attached and, as the ensuing legal process is a time-consuming one, recovery rates fall drastically when compared to the suits that have been settled by the tribunal, Kaliyaretnam pointed out.
About 153 cases have been settled out of court involving an amount of Rs 27.56 crore.