What is DRT Fees?
DRT Fees are the court fees payable on Original Applications before the DRT and on appeals before the DRAT, slabbed by the amount claimed. Fees are notified by the Central Government and revised from time to time.
| Meaning | DRT Fees are the court fees payable on Original Applications before the DRT and on appeals before the DRAT, slabbed by the amount claimed. Fees are notified by the Central Government and revised from time to time. |
|---|---|
| Category | DRT |
| Related Laws | DRT (Procedure) Rules |
| Who Uses It | Banks, borrowers, lawyers |
| Why It Matters | Cost-of-litigation input for both sides. |
DRT Fees explained in plain English
A practitioner's view written for borrowers and advisors — not a textbook definition.
DRT Fees are the court fees payable on Original Applications before the DRT and on appeals before the DRAT, slabbed by the amount claimed. Fees are notified by the Central Government and revised from time to time.
In practice, DRT Fees is used most often by banks, borrowers, lawyers. Each of them sees the term from a slightly different angle: borrowers care about protection and outcomes, lenders care about classification and recovery, regulators care about consistency and disclosure.
The legal anchor for DRT Fees is DRT (Procedure) Rules. RBI master directions, the SARFAESI Act 2002, the RDB Act 1993 and the IBC 2016 commonly interplay, depending on the loan size, security and stage of stress.
Why does it matter? Cost-of-litigation input for both sides. For a stressed borrower, getting this concept right early often saves several months of penal interest, legal cost and credit-score damage.
A real example: Bank pays ₹1.5 lakh court fees on a ₹10 crore OA at DRT. The mechanics may look complex, but the underlying logic — the bank wants closure, the borrower wants a fair outcome — is straightforward once the right framework is in place.
If you are facing a situation involving DRT Fees, the safest first step is a structured case review with a senior ex-banker who has handled comparable matters across banks and ARCs in India.
Where you'll encounter DRT Fees
Whenever a loan moves from "Standard" to "stressed", DRT Fees is one of the words that starts appearing in notices, bank emails and lawyers' opinions.
Sanctioning committees, recovery teams and risk officers use DRT Fees to classify accounts, decide provisioning and approve resolution paths.
DRT Fees appears in pleadings, securitisation applications, OAs, Section 7/9 petitions and SARFAESI writs as part of the dispute record.
When stressed loans are sold to ARCs or special-situations investors, DRT Fees is used in term sheets, assignment agreements and due-diligence reports.