Banking Sector is the back-bone of any countries economy. The functions and activities of modern bank is much beyond the traditional role of simple money lending and borrowing. There are several regulations in India which governs banking activities, of which major are Banking Regulations Act, 1949, Reserve Bank of India Act 1934, Recovery of Debt due to Financial Institutions Act, 1993. Reserve Bank of India is a watch dog of entire financial sector of the Country.
Under Banking our areas of practice are : -

• Banker-Customer Dispute (Banking Ombudsman)
• Recovery Proceedings
• Security Enforcement (Securitization)

Bank-Customer Disputes :
Reserve Bank of India has introduced a scheme knows as Banking Ombudsman Scheme - 2006, with a view to redress the grievances and complaints of the Customers against the functional and services of the Bank. We advise and represent clients in filing complaints before the ombudsman. The following are the issues,

Which we are normally faced with in bank customer disputes: -

• non-payment or inordinate delay in the payment or collection of cheques, drafts, bills etc.;
• non-acceptance, without sufficient cause, of small denomination notes tendered for any purpose, and for charging of commission in respect thereof;
• non-acceptance, without sufficient cause, of coins tendered and for charging of commission in respect thereof;
• non-payment or delay in payment of inward remittances ;
• failure to issue or delay in issue of drafts, pay orders or bankers' cheques;
• non-adherence to prescribed working hours ;
• failure to provide or delay in providing a banking facility (other than loans and advances) promised in writing by a bank or its direct selling agents;
• delays, non-credit of proceeds to parties' accounts, non-payment of deposit or non-observance of the Reserve Bank directives, if any, applicable to rate of interest on deposits in any savings, current or other account maintained with a bank ;
• complaints from Non-Resident Indians having accounts in India in relation to their remittances from abroad, deposits and other bankrelated matters;
• refusal to open deposit accounts without any valid reason for refusal;
• levying of charges without adequate prior notice to the customer;
• non-adherence by the bank or its subsidiaries to the instructions of Reserve Bank on ATM/Debit card operations or credit card operations;
• non-disbursement or delay in disbursement of pension (to the extent the grievance can be attributed to the action on the part of the bank concerned, but not with regard to its employees);
• refusal to accept or delay in accepting payment towards taxes, as required by Reserve Bank/Government;
• refusal to issue or delay in issuing, or failure to service or delay in servicing or redemption of Government securities;
• forced closure of deposit accounts without due notice or without sufficient reason;
• refusal to close or delay in closing the accounts;
• non-adherence to the fair practices code as adopted by the bank;
• non-adherence to the provisions of the Code of Bank's Commitments to Customers issued by Banking Codes and Standards Board of India and as adopted by the bank
• non-observance of Reserve Bank guidelines on engagement of recovery agents by banks;
• any other matter relating to the violation of the directives issued by the Reserve Bank in relation to banking or other services.
• A complaint on any one of the following grounds alleging deficiency in banking service in respect of loans and advances
• non-observance of Reserve Bank Directives on interest rates;
• delays in sanction, disbursement or non-observance of prescribed time schedule for disposal of loan applications;
• non-acceptance of application for loans without furnishing valid reasons to the applicant; and
• non-adherence to the provisions of the fair practices code for lenders as adopted by the bank or Code of Bank's Commitment to Customers, as the case may be;
• non-observance of Reserve Bank guidelines on engagement of recovery agents by banks; and
• non-observance of any other direction or instruction of the Reserve Bank as may be specified by the Reserve Bank for this purpose from time to time.

Recovery Litigations :
One of the major functions of the bank is to recover its lending from its borrowers. Modes of such recoveries are mainly (1) Enforcement of Security Interest under Securitization law, (2) Filing recovery Proceedings before the Civil Court or Debt Recovery Tribunals, as the case may be. We have vast experience in Securitization Law and Debt Recovery Proceedings. We have extensively represented in cases before the DRT & DRAT in issues pertaining to Securitization Appeals and Debt Recovery Proceedings. Our indepth and technical knowledge on the subject enables us to find solution to majority of problem and issues arising under the Recovery Proceedings.

Securitization :
A radical change was made in law of Security Enforcement with the passing of The Securitization And Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002. With coming into force of the act, a secured creditor, can without, the intervention of the court, take over the secured assets of the debtor, for realization of its dues. The Act was challenged before the Supreme Court in case famously known as 'Maradia Chemicals' wherein while striking down certain provision of statute, the Apex Court upheld the constitutional validity of the act and also pointed inbuild checks in the statute for curtailing unfettered and arbitrary use of powers by the creditor in enforcing security Interest.

Major check points are (i) classification of assents as NPA as per the guidelines of RBI, and informing the debtor of his account becoming NPA (ii) Issuance of detailed Notice to the debtor for repayment of amount, which shall necessarily include the date of account becoming NPA, total outstanding, breakup of such outstanding, secured property to be attached (iii) if representation or reply is made by the debtor to such notice, the creditor is under obligation to reply to such representation after proper consideration and appreciation of such representation, within a period of 7 days (iv) upon expiry of term of notice, to take prompt steps for taking over the secured assets. Not following such check points may render all the proceedings initiated by creditor under the securitization law as non-est and void.

We claim expertise on Securitization Law. We have varied experience in conducting litigations on Securitization Law. We appear before the Debt Recovery Tribunal & Debt Recovery Appellate Tribunal in appeal against the proceedings undertaken under the Securitization Law.