Explainer · Insolvency & Debt Recovery Tribunals

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

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 the NCLT, NCLAT, DRT and DRAT benches Claw covers as of 14 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. Claw adds benches over time, so these are a dated coverage snapshot, not a permanent ceiling.

01The short answer: four tribunals, four jobs

India runs insolvency and debt-recovery matters through four separate tribunal systems. As of 14 September 2026, Claw’s coverage register tracks 15 NCLT benches (National Company Law Tribunal), 2 NCLAT benches (National Company Law Appellate Tribunal), 9 Debts Recovery Tribunals (DRT), and 5 Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunals (DRAT).

These are Claw-covered bench counts, meaning the benches whose case data Claw tracks for case management, taken from Claw’s own Court and Tribunal Coverage Directory as of 14 September 2026. The official national networks (especially DRT) are larger, and Claw adds benches over time, so coverage grows: treat these as a dated snapshot, not the full national count and not a permanent ceiling. They are a count of benches, not of pending cases. What matters for a practitioner is knowing which of the four systems a 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: 15 benches covered

As of 14 September 2026, Claw’s register tracks 15 NCLT benches, covering the Principal Bench in New Delhi and the main regional benches across the major metros and state capitals where company-law and insolvency matters are concentrated, such as Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, and Chandigarh. The NCLT structure runs a Principal Bench plus regional benches, and the tribunal occasionally adds or reconstitutes benches by notification, so Claw’s covered count is a dated snapshot that grows as new benches are brought into coverage.

NCLAT: 2 benches covered

Claw covers both NCLAT benches: the Principal Bench in New Delhi and the bench in Chennai, the latter set up to serve litigants in the southern states without needing to travel to Delhi for every appeal.

DRT: 9 tribunals covered

As of 14 September 2026, Claw’s register tracks 9 Debts Recovery Tribunals, spanning the high-volume recovery centres where banks and lenders file the bulk of their matters. The national DRT network is larger than this, and each DRT carries its own territorial jurisdiction over a defined set of districts or states, so a recovery case has to be located at the specific DRT with jurisdiction over the borrower or the security, not through one central lookup. Because DRTs operate independently rather than as a single searchable network, coverage is built tribunal by tribunal, and Claw is expanding the covered set over time, so the 9 figure is a dated coverage snapshot rather than a permanent limit.

DRAT: 5 benches covered

Claw covers all 5 DRAT locations in the register: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Allahabad. Each DRAT bench hears appeals from a defined group of DRTs in its region.

These are the benches Claw covers as of 14 September 2026, drawn from Claw’s Court and Tribunal Coverage Directory, not the full official national totals, and coverage grows over time.

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 15, NCLAT 2, DRT 9, DRAT 5) are Claw-covered figures, drawn from Claw’s Court and Tribunal Coverage Directory as of 14 September 2026, and reflect the benches whose case data Claw tracks rather than the full official national networks, which are larger. Coverage changes as Claw brings new benches online, so treat these as a dated snapshot, not permanent. This page was last verified October 2026.

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 30 crore plus judgments from the Supreme Court (from 1950) and the High Courts (from 1990), with results returned in under 5 seconds; for tribunals, Claw’s case tracking and management coverage sits within a register of 9,102 courts, benches, and forums (as of 14 September 2026), including the insolvency and debt-recovery benches named above, with auto case updates, cause lists, and hearing alerts so a firm does not have to check each tribunal portal by hand. Claw does not train on customer documents. For the full list across every system, see the Claw court and tribunal coverage register.

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

Coverage counts on this page come from Claw’s Court and Tribunal Coverage Directory (as of 14 September 2026); the structure of each tribunal, and the official case-status portals, are referenced from the government sources below:

• 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