Telugu film actor and producer Bandla Ganesh Babu has approached the Supreme Court to challenge a bank's SARFAESI auction of one of his mortgaged properties. His petition raises the question of how the SARFAESI Act, 2002 and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 should interact when a secured asset is contested.
What this changes for a title check
This case puts a live question back before the Supreme Court: can a bank complete a SARFAESI auction against a mortgaged property while a related insolvency question is still open, and can the outcome later be reopened. For a lender's legal team, the practical takeaway is to check, before relying on a completed SARFAESI sale certificate, whether the borrower or guarantor has any live or pending IBC proceeding that touches the same asset. A title report on a bank auctioned property should now flag any SARFAESI versus IBC challenge pending before the Supreme Court or a High Court as a live title risk, rather than treat the auction as final just because possession and a sale certificate were issued. Recovery teams pursuing individual guarantors and promoters, not just corporate borrowers, should also watch this case, since the outcome could set the rule for how far a personal insolvency or moratorium can reach back into an already conducted secured asset auction.