The Hon’ble Delhi High Court has recently, by way of a judgment delivered on 14 March 2023, held that Writ Petitions filed seeking relief against Banks and other Financial Institutions in cases where the Builder/Developer has failed to deliver possession, are not entertainable.

While dismissing the Writ Petitions, the Learned Single Judge made a distinction between “maintainability” and “entertainability” of the writ petitions and observed that these two were distinct legal concepts.

Reiterating the well settled principle that rights emanating from private contracts cannot be enforced by way of a Writ Petition, the Court held that since the rights claimed by the Petitioners flowed from private contracts and each of the cases also involved complex and disputed question of facts, the Court would not entertain the Petitions.

It was also observed that not only did the rights of the Petitioners flow from private contracts, but also, the parties were not remediless, as alternative remedies before various fora are available to the Petitioners to address such grievances, and any interference by the Writ Court would amount to usurpation of powers vested with the respective fora.

Therefore, in view of the availability of alternative remedies available to the Petitioners, the Hon’ble Delhi High Court did not find it appropriate to entertain these Writ Petitions.

Our Litigation Partner, Kuber Dewan, along with Neeharika Aggarwal, Principal Associate; Trisha Raychaudhuri, Senior Associate; and Kaustubh Srivastava, Associate, represented one of the Respondent Banks.