CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has issued notices to the Secretary of the Department of Financial Services under Ministry of Finance after it was brought to its notice through a PIL that the post of Permanent Presiding Officer in the Debts Recovery Tribunal (DRT) in Cuttack has been lying vacant for a long time now.
While issuing the notice on Monday, December 6, 2021, the division bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice AK Mohapatra in an interim order said, “with there being no regular functioning DRT at Cuttack, the Court directs the Union of India to immediately make alternate arrangements, till the appointment of the presiding officer of DRT takes place”.
The bench also asked the Assistant Solicitor General of India Prasanna Kumar Parhi to convey the order and obtain instruction in the matter by the next date (December 15). Advocate Ranjan Kumar Rout had filed the PIL recently. In his petition, Rout said after the tenure of the incumbent presiding officer DRT, Odisha, ended on February 2, 2021, the DRT (Visakhapatnam) was made in-charge presiding officer of Odisha till September 30, 2021. The post has since remained vacant.
According to the petition, large numbers of cases are pending in DRT, Odisha, and the interim orders in many cases have expired. The interim orders could not be extended due to non-appointment of the officer.
The DRT, Odisha, was established for the banks and the financial institutions in the State at Cuttack in 2001 for adjudication of the dispute between the banks and the borrowers, where the subject matter of dispute is more than `10 lakh.