The first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P D Audikesavalu while disposing a plea in this regard said “It is elementary that courts do not rewrite contracts on behalf of the parties. Ordinarily, entities like asset reconstruction companies offer similar terms to several borrowers. In such a scenario, merely because one of the borrowers is before this court does not imply that the court will extend the time for making payment under the OTS in favour of the litigant before it.” Holding that the petitioner ought to have approached the M/s. Reliance Asset Reconstruction Company Limited (RSRCL), with a request to extend the time for making payment, the court held that the bank would have had no authority to modify the terms offered by RSRCL after the debt had been transferred by the bank to RSRCL.

The petitioner had obtained credit facilities from Indian Bank, which assigned the debt due to it from the petitioner to RSRCL. Based on this, the petitioning textile company in Dharmapuri sought the court to direct the bank to consider its representation to enforce a one-time settlement on the basis of the offer made by RSRCL on August 13, 2020.

Slamming the prayer sought as ridiculous, the bench held “A borrower obtained credit facilities from a bank and the bank has transferred the debt due to an asset reconstruction company, whereupon the asset reconstruction company offered a one-time settlement to the borrower; but, instead of approaching the asset reconstruction company (RSRCL), the borrower has approached the original creditor (Indian Bank) to modify the terms of settlement.”