A ‘SINGLE SALE NOTICE’ AND ‘VALID PUBLICATION’ UNDER THE SARFAESI ACT, 2002.


The SARFASESI Act, 2002 has gone through a paradigm of shifts, the one practical lacuna that all litigants face is the 30 days time granted to the borrower for the right to redemption. As per the procedure envisaged in the act, the secured creditor takes possession of the immovable property and proceeds to issue a notice of sale under Rule 8(6) for the sale of the immovable property. The aggrieved borrowers usually take the recourse under section 17 of the Act and one of the most common grounds taken is ‘the illegal measures/ procedures undertaken by the bank in the non compliance of providing a 30 days period from the date of issuance of sale notice as mandated by the Act’.

The practice that was usually and widely being followed was that there was multiple issuance of a sale notice under Rule 8(6) of the SARFESI rule. An individual sale notice was first served to the borrower along with affixation in the said immovable property and after thirty-days gap, another sale notice for publication was followed under Rule 9(1). If the thirty day gap was not maintained between servicing the individual sale notice and the subsequent publication of sale notice thereafter, the said procedure for sale was deemed to be done against the law wherein the borrowers redemption rights stood violated. This legal validity of simultaneous issuance of sale notice and the sanctity of maintaining 30 days gap after issuance of each was was widely upheld by many Tribunal and courts across India until the judgement of the Supreme Court in M. RAJENDRAN & ORS.  vs. M/S KPK OILS AND PROTEINS INDIA PVT. LTD. & ORS. 2025 INSC 1137.

The judgement authored by Justice Pardiwala clarified the position with respect to the issuance of a sale notice under Rule 8(6). The SC opined that the act does not contemplate the issuance of two distinct and separate notices of sale and the mandate to maintain a thirty day gap between the service of the two publication of such notice or notice(s) in the newspaper in terms of Rule(s) 8(6) and 9(1), respectively. It clarified that “The Proviso to Rule 8(6), Rule 8(7) and Rule 9(1), only govern the manner in which such notice of sale contemplated under Rule 8(6), has to be given. The said rules only go so far as to stipulate certain additional Page 115 of 139 conditions or requirements in effectuating the notice of sale under Rule 8(6), but do not by any stretch stipulate the requirement for causing a completely separate and distinct notice, in addition to the notice of sale under Rule 8(6) of the SARFAESI Rules.”


Therefore, only one issuance of sale notice is contemplated and it is only the different modes of services of the said notice which is to be diligently considered. The right of redemption of the borrower stands extinguished when the sale notice is published, the same is contemplated under section 13(8) which stipulates that the borrower must tender the dues “before the date of publication of notice” for “public auction or inviting quotations or tender from public or private treaty”

The top court in Bafna motors(2024 INSC 978) also authored by Justice Pardiawala had elaboratedly held that the pre-amendment section 13(8) wherein the right of redemption could be done before the sale and transfer was finalised was nullified after the amendment in 2015 where the amended section granted the borrower's right to redemption until the date of publication of the sale notice.


Thus it is the ‘publication’ of the sale notice through various modes that has to be given great importance. The top court in M Rajenderan(supra) also elucidated that the sale notice is said to be validly published when the service to the borrower, publication in newspaper, and the affixation and uploading of the “notice of sale”, as may be required under the SARFAESI Rules is duly done. The 30 day period would begin from the date when any of the modes for service of notice of sale is first complied with by the creditor and the right to redemption of the borrower shall be extinguished once the sale notice is validly published (which means serviced,affixed and published as per rule 8[6]) as per the SARFAESI rules. Therefore there is no requirement to maintain a gap of thirty-days each, between the service of notice or notice(s) of sale to the borrower, and the publication of such notice or notice(s) in the newspaper in terms of Rule(s) 8(6) and 9(1). To quote the dicta the top court held that “The notion, that a thirty-days gap ought to be maintained between the notice of sale to the borrower and the eventual publication of such notice in the newspaper, was due to the decision of this Court in Mathew Varghese (supra) which was based on the decision on the unamended section of 13(8)”


Thus the aforesaid judgement of the Supreme court has strongly addressed the elephant in the room of the procedural lapses of the SARFAESI Act that was never quite pointed out or highlighted despite the enactment and the applicability of the Act for more than two decades. This judgement is of great significance and a major ruling which would limit the burden of the Tribunals and courts ahead. 
Greetings, I am a young legal professional and a proud Gorkha who’s eager as a morning bird, loves poetry and drama, listens to the Floyd and the Beatles, admires the court craft and is passionate about the little things that adds immense value.

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