Time-barred mortgage enforcement cannot be revived through SARFAESI when the underlying claim has expired.

The enforcement remedy under the Securitization and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002 cannot revive a mortgage claim that is already time-barred under the Limitation Act, 1963. Section 36 requires the underlying financial claim to be made within the limitation period, and the Act operates only as an additional mode of enforcing an existing security interest. Where the right to enforce the mortgage has expired and no subsisting mortgage remedy remains, recourse to the statutory mechanism is barred. On that basis, the enforcement notice was unsustainable and the impugned notices were quashed.

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Issues: Whether the secured creditor could invoke the Securitization and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002 when the right to enforce the mortgage had already become time-barred under the Limitation Act, 1963.

Analysis: Section 36 requires that a claim in respect of a financial asset must be made within the period of limitation. The remedy under the Act is an additional mode of enforcing a pre-existing security interest, not a device to revive a claim already extinguished under ordinary law. A pending mortgage claim or a subsisting right to institute mortgage proceedings may sustain recourse under the Act, but where the limitation period for enforcing the mortgage has expired and no subsisting mortgage right remains, the statutory remedy cannot resurrect that barred claim.

Conclusion: The invocation of the Act was barred by limitation, and the notice issued for enforcement of the security could not be sustained. The appeal succeeded and the impugned notices were quashed.

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