Every NCLT, NCLAT, DRT and DRAT Bench, Named: Insolvency and Debt-Recovery Coverage (2026)

Explainer · Insolvency & Debt Recovery Tribunals

Updated for 2026 · Claw Editorial

If you work on an insolvency matter or a bank recovery case, the first practical problem is not the law, it is the forum. A company insolvency case does not sit in the same tribunal as a bank’s loan recovery case, and an appeal from each goes to a different appellate body again. Get the forum wrong, or lose track of which bench a matter has moved to, and you lose time you cannot get back. This page names every NCLT, NCLAT, DRT and DRAT bench in India as of 17 September 2026, explains what each one actually hears, and shows how the appeal chain runs, so you always know where a case sits and where it can go next.

01The short answer: four tribunals, four jobs

India runs insolvency and debt-recovery matters through four separate tribunal systems, and each has a fixed, named set of benches. As of 17 September 2026: the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) sits in 16 benches, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) sits in 2 benches, the Debts Recovery Tribunal (DRT) network runs 39 tribunals, and the Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal (DRAT) sits in 5 benches.

None of these numbers are estimates. They come from the tribunals’ own published bench lists and the Department of Financial Services, and they are the count of benches, not the count of pending cases. What matters for a practitioner is not the number itself, but knowing which of the four systems your matter belongs to, and which bench inside it.

An insolvency case and a bank recovery case are not the same job, and they do not go to the same tribunal. Getting the forum right is the first step, not an afterthought.

02What each tribunal actually hears

The four names get confused often, so here is the plain difference.

• NCLT hears company-law and insolvency matters, mainly cases under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and the Companies Act. This includes corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) applications, liquidation, and company-law disputes such as oppression and mismanagement.
• NCLAT hears appeals against NCLT orders. If a party disagrees with an NCLT decision, the next stop is NCLAT, not a High Court.
• DRT hears debt-recovery matters, mainly applications by banks and financial institutions to recover dues under the Recovery of Debts and Bankruptcy Act (RDDBFI Act) and matters connected with security enforcement under the SARFAESI Act.
• DRAT hears appeals against DRT orders, including appeals by borrowers challenging action taken under the SARFAESI Act.

So the appeal chain runs two separate tracks: NCLT to NCLAT for insolvency and company-law matters, and DRT to DRAT for bank recovery matters. The two tracks do not cross. A company insolvency appeal does not go to DRAT, and a bank recovery appeal does not go to NCLAT.

Tax tribunals are a separate system again, covered in our explainer on ITAT, GSTAT and CESTAT coverage. If you need the full picture of every tribunal bench in India, not just insolvency and debt recovery, see our audit of every tribunal bench Claw covers.

03Who actually needs to track this

Three groups deal with NCLT, NCLAT, DRT and DRAT benches as a routine part of their work.

• Insolvency professionals (IPs/IRPs/RPs): they file and appear in CIRP and liquidation matters at NCLT, and defend or pursue appeals at NCLAT. Knowing which bench a company’s case sits in, and tracking hearing dates across multiple ongoing matters, is daily work.
• Lenders and their recovery teams: banks, NBFCs, and asset reconstruction companies file recovery applications at DRT and handle SARFAESI appeals at DRAT, often across many borrowers and many benches at once.
• Corporate legal teams: in-house counsel need to know immediately if their company, a group entity, or a counterparty is named in an NCLT insolvency filing, since this can affect contracts, credit terms, and disclosure obligations.

For all three, the practical need is the same: find the right bench fast, and keep track of a case once it is filed, including if it moves on appeal.

04The benches, named

NCLT: 16 benches

The NCLT runs 16 benches in total, sitting across 15 cities. New Delhi hosts both the Principal Bench and a separate regional New Delhi Bench, and the other 14 benches are one each at: Ahmedabad, Allahabad, Amaravati, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Cuttack, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kochi, Kolkata, and Mumbai.

NCLAT: 2 benches

NCLAT sits at the Principal Bench in New Delhi and at a bench in Chennai, set up to serve litigants in the southern states without needing to travel to Delhi for every appeal.

DRT: 39 tribunals

The Department of Financial Services lists 39 Debts Recovery Tribunals functioning across India, each with its own territorial jurisdiction covering a defined set of districts or states. By region, the cities are: Delhi (3 DRTs), Chandigarh (3), Jaipur, Allahabad, Dehradun, Jabalpur, Lucknow, Patna and Ranchi in the north; Chennai (3), Bengaluru (2), Coimbatore, Ernakulam (2) and Madurai in the south; Kolkata (3), Hyderabad (2), Visakhapatnam, Siliguri, Cuttack and Guwahati in the east; and Mumbai (3), Ahmedabad (2), Aurangabad, Nagpur and Pune in the west. Because DRTs operate independently rather than as a single searchable network, a recovery case has to be located at the specific DRT with jurisdiction over the borrower or the security, not through one central lookup.

DRAT: 5 benches

DRAT sits at 5 locations: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Allahabad. Each DRAT bench hears appeals from a defined group of DRTs in its region.

05Searching a case by party name

All four tribunal systems support case status lookup by party name through their own portals: the NCLT and NCLAT case status pages, and the DRT/DRAT e-filing portal. In practice, this means you can search for a company, a bank, or an individual borrower and see whether a matter has been filed against them, and at which bench. For the step-by-step process on the NCLT side, see our how-to on searching NCLT cases online. For debt-recovery matters specifically, see our guide to DRT and DRAT case tracking software.

The catch is that each of these is a separate portal with its own search, and none of the four systems shares a single combined index with the others, or with the High Courts and Supreme Court. If you need to check a company or a counterparty across insolvency, debt recovery, and ordinary civil or criminal litigation at once, that means checking multiple portals separately, or using a case-tracking tool that pulls all of them into one place.

06Methodology and limits

The bench counts on this page (NCLT 16, NCLAT 2, DRT 39, DRAT 5) are drawn from the tribunals’ own published bench pages and the Department of Financial Services’ DRT/DRAT page, last checked 17 September 2026. Tribunal bench counts do change occasionally, when a new bench is added or jurisdiction is reorganised, so treat these as current as of the verification date, not permanent.

What this page does not do: it does not report how many cases are pending at any bench, since that number changes constantly and is not something we track or estimate. It also does not list every district or state covered by each DRT’s jurisdiction down to the taluka level, since that fine-grained detail needs to be confirmed against the live DRT portal rather than asserted here.

07Where Claw fits

Claw is an all-in-one legaltech platform for Indian advocates, law firms, and corporate legal teams, combining AI-based case search, an AI legal assistant (Legal GPT), case management, and compliance automation across all Indian courts and tribunals.

For NCLT, NCLAT, DRT and DRAT matters specifically, Claw’s role is case tracking, not judgement search. Claw’s AI case search covers the Supreme Court and the 25 High Courts; for tribunals, Claw’s case tracking and management coverage extends across 8,200+ courts and tribunals in India, including insolvency and debt-recovery benches, with auto case updates, cause lists, and hearing alerts so a firm does not have to check each tribunal portal by hand.

Insolvency professionals and lenders sometimes need something narrower than full case management: a quick check of whether a company or counterparty has an insolvency filing anywhere before a deal, an onboarding, or a credit decision. See our note on litigation search for insolvency professionals for that specific use case. For most firms, though, the immediate need covered on this page is simpler: knowing which bench a matter is at, and not missing a hearing once it is filed.

08Sources

Counts and structure on this page are drawn from official sources:

• NCLT bench list: nclt.gov.in/benches
• NCLAT: nclat.nic.in
• DRT/DRAT count: financialservices.gov.in/drt-drat
• DRT e-filing: drt.gov.in
• Claw: clawlaw.in

Bench counts can change when a new bench is set up or jurisdiction is reorganised. Confirm current figures against the live official pages before relying on them for a filing decision.

09Frequently asked questions