Exclusive Debt Recovery Tribunal jurisdiction bars civil court where only debt recovery survives after contractual reliefs are abandoned.

Once the bank abandoned specific performance and damages, the only surviving relief was recovery of a debt under the Recovery of Debts Due to Banks and Financial Institutions Act, 1993. Civil court jurisdiction was therefore barred under section 18, and exclusive competence vested in the Debt Recovery Tribunal under section 17. Jurisdiction could not be created by omission, acquiescence, or consent, so the civil decree would be a nullity if passed without legal authority. The Tribunal's earlier return order rested on the mistaken assumption that specific performance still survived and was set aside.

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Issues: Whether, after the bank abandoned the claim for specific performance and damages and pursued only recovery of money due, the suit became exclusively triable by the Debt Recovery Tribunal and the civil court lacked jurisdiction; and whether the Tribunal's earlier order returning the matter to the civil court could stand.

Analysis: Once the reliefs of specific performance and damages were given up, the surviving claim was only for recovery of a debt within the statutory scheme of the Recovery of Debts Due to Banks and Financial Institutions Act, 1993. Under section 18, civil court jurisdiction stood barred and the Tribunal alone had competence to adjudicate the claim under section 17. The fact that the bank had not appealed against the Tribunal's earlier order did not confer jurisdiction on the civil court where none existed in law. A court's jurisdiction cannot be created by omission, acquiescence, or consent, and any decree passed without jurisdiction would be a nullity. The earlier Tribunal order proceeded on an erroneous assumption that the specific performance claim still survived.

Conclusion: The claim was held to be exclusively triable by the Tribunal, the civil court had no jurisdiction, and the Tribunal's earlier order was set aside.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the only surviving relief is recovery of a debt falling within the Act, civil court jurisdiction is barred and exclusive jurisdiction vests in the Debt Recovery Tribunal; jurisdiction cannot be conferred by failure to challenge an erroneous order or by consent.

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