Mumbai: The Bombay high court asked the Union ministry of finance on Monday to ensure the allotment of new premises for the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) in Mumbai after the existing office was shut down following a fire.
A bench of Justices A.S. Oka and R.I. Chagla said that the government must not take an adversarial stand on the issue, and, instead, work on eliminating any hold-ups that could be coming in the way of providing a new office space for the tribunal.
The court also dismissed the argument made by the Central government counsel Rui Rodrigues that the lack of funds was one of the reasons for the delay in providing a new space for the tribunal in the financial capital.
The DRT had been operating out of the Scindia House Building in the Ballard Estate area in south Mumbai but the office was closed in June following a fire, after which the tribunal has been working at a temporary space inside the Punjab National Bank office in Ballard Pier. The bar association of the tribunal approached the high court in July, seeking a direction to the Centre to allot appropriate space for the DRT’s office.
The Centre had earlier informed the court it had identified office space in the MTNL building in South Mumbai and in the Mumbai Port Trust Area to house the DRT.
However, on Monday, Rodrigues informed the bench that besides lack of funds, the delay had been caused because some officers of the Finance Ministry had submitted that the HC had ruled out the allotment of the space in MTNL building.
