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, the opposite party no.6 was not a financial institution within the meaning of Section 2(m)(iv) of the Act. Since it was not a financial institution, it was not a secured creditor and it cannot invoke the provisions of the said Act in respect of a loan transaction of a prior date.

16. Opposite party no.6 has been declared a financial institution only by the notification and the said notification takes effect from 10.11.2003 prospectively and not from a prior date. Therefore, the fact remains that by the time the alleged agreement was entered into between opposite party no.6 and petitioner i.e. on 26.5.2001 and 6.5.2002, opposite party no.6 Maharshi Housing Development Finance Corporation Ltd., was not a financial institution within the meaning of Section 2(m) (iv) of the said Act and not being a financial institution it was not a secured creditor and could not invoke the provisions of Section 13 of the Securitization Act. Nor the petitioner was a 'borrower' under the definition of Section 2(f) on 26.5.2001 or on 6.5.2002 since a borrower means a person who has been granted financial assistance by a financial institution. Opposite party no. 6 not being a financial institution either on 26.5.2001 or on 6.5.2002 whatever loan it might have granted to the petitioner on that date was not any financial assistance given to the petitioner by a financial institution within the meaning of Section 2(m)(iv).

13. From the above, it is clear that in Subash Chandra Panda, the view taken is that the secured creditor could invoke Section 13 of the Act only if it was covered by the said definition on the date of loan transaction. The notification extended the Act to ORHDC with effect 10.11.2003, by including ORHDC in the definition of 'financial institution' under Section 2(m) and thus on the date of loan transaction it was not the 'secured creditor' so as to invoke Section 13 of the SARFAESI Act. On the contrary, the view taken in Unique Engineering Works and Pradeep Kumar Gupta is that the Statute is the remedy for enforcing security in the existing loan transactions which have become irregular. The Parliament had provided for remedial measures to rectify the existing conditions. The Statute is retroactive in nature, though it may operate in future by way of future action for enforcing existing security interest. The Act was intended to be retrospective to include all the borrowers who were given financial assistance before the Act came into force but whose accounts became non performing. Reference has been made to definition 'borrower' under Section 2(f), default under Section 2(j), hypothecation under Section 2(n) and secured asset under section 2(zc) to highlight that the Act referred to transactions already entered into. It has also been observed that Section 13(2) used the expression 'any person who makes default' which can refer to the transaction already entered into in respect of which default has been made and for which action was required to be taken under the Act. It has been further observed that the Act being a procedural law has to be taken to be retrospective. Securitization was only a procedure by which pre-existing rights are enforced. Section 2(f), (j), (m), (n), (zc) are as follows: