Sandeep K. Rajput: Law. Logic. Leadership.

Redefining Legal Recovery with Innovation, Precision, and Purpose at IIFL!

Legal recovery is often the last line of defense in finance, messy, time-consuming, and complex. At IIFL, as volumes grew and regulations tightened, the legal team found itself caught in a web of paperwork, outdated processes, and court delays. Notices took weeks to dispatch. Tracking case progress across jurisdictions was chaotic. And recovery often meant reaction, not strategy.

That’s when Sandeep K. Rajput stepped in.

As Head of Legal Recovery at IIFL, Sandeep was not interested in quick fixes. He saw an opportunity to rewrite how legal recovery could work, not just for the company, but for the industry. He knew that digitization wasn’t a luxury anymore; it was the only way forward.

Under his leadership, IIFL rolled out a tech-driven legal recovery model in partnership with Credgenics. What once took weeks was now automated. Legal notices, court summons, and even warrant dispatches moved online. Teams could track case progress, expenses, and communication in real-time, from a single dashboard. The black-and-white world of legal paperwork became a living, breathing, data-driven system.

Sandeep didn’t just lead the change, he built trust around it. Advocates, recovery officers, and even borrowers found the new process more transparent and efficient. Bounce rates dropped. Recovery outcomes improved. And most importantly, legal moved from being a bottleneck to becoming a strategic advantage.

Through every step, Sandeep brought clarity to a space known for chaos. His story is proof that with vision and resolve, even the most rigid systems can be reimagined.

Let us learn more about his journey:

A Legal Architect’s Ascent

Sandeep heads Legal Recovery at IIFL. Before this, he spent almost twenty years building deep experience in litigation and corporate law through key roles at Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra, and leading NBFCs. He chose his path early, learning how to navigate a legal system full of delays and complications. At IIFL, he is doing more than handling legal cases. He is shaping how the entire system works. It is not about working more. It is about finding better ways to get results.

His journey shows two things running side by side, strong legal thinking and a push for digital progress. His role covers policy, risk checks, and legal recoveries. These came together during the launch of Project Litigal, which combines the words legal and digital. It was IIFL’s way of moving legal recovery into the digital space. This shift came from his belief that legal strategies work best when supported by fast and flexible operations.

His mindset is about balance. Not every risk ends badly. But missing a chance often leads to regret. Sandeep helped IIFL take that leap, from piles of paperwork to a mix of digital and manual systems. This allowed the team to stop chasing after problems and start predicting results, focus on the right files, and talk to stakeholders more quickly. It was not just about using technology. It was about making legal work stronger and faster.

When he joined IIFL, the tools were old-school. Now he is building a system that runs in real time, tracking cases as they happen, giving advocates a dashboard, sending e-notices without delays. These are not fancy add-ons. They are part of changing how legal teams function at their core. The real challenge is not the plan. It is the stress of sticking to every detail without room to adapt. Sandeep is moving quickly to replace that pressure with practical solutions and clear results.

Execution Across Diverse Lending Portfolios

Sandeep leads and drives special projects within the Retail Assets Division, aligning business goals with legal processes for smooth execution. His core responsibility involves overseeing litigation and non-litigation matters, formulating legal strategies that safeguard institutional interests and ensure compliance with regulations.

In the domain of Gold Loan and Money at Home (MOHO) operations, Sandeep provides legal direction for risk control and asset protection. His involvement ensures that all legal processes are followed with precision, securing compliance and strengthening operational integrity.

For unsecured loans and digital lending platforms, he handles legal governance, litigation and advisory matters. This includes drafting and reviewing contracts, resolving disputes, and ensuring that the lending framework stays compliant with evolving fintech regulations.

In the area of Secured Business Loans (SBL) and high-ticket business loans, Sandeep navigates the legal complexities surrounding collateral, ensuring clear title checks, enforceability of agreements, and timely dispute resolution.

His responsibilities also include managing legal aspects of loans backed by securities. By supervising the legal execution of such instruments, Sandeep ensures that these capital market-linked loans comply with the required risk and regulatory frameworks.

Across the retail asset portfolio, Sandeep oversees legal case management, ensuring timely actions, appropriate legal representation, and alignment with recovery targets.

On the compliance front, he ensures that all legal reporting to the Reserve Bank of India is timely and accurate, keeping the institution in line with regulatory standards.

Sandeep also focuses on resolving high-ageing legal accounts, applying rigorous legal tactics and settlement strategies to improve recovery outcomes in cases where value and delays are significant.

Litigal in Motion

What began as a vision to bring agility into legal operations became a full-scale transformation. Under Sandeep’s leadership, IIFL partnered with Credgenics to design a digital system that manages the complete legal recovery cycle, from first contact with a borrower to field recovery and court action. This was not just about streamlining tasks. It was a complete shift in how legal enforcement is planned and executed.

The new workflow brings together machine learning for borrower segmentation, multi-channel communication, field agent coordination, and instant payment options. For legal recovery, the most important feature is automation. All actions, whether notices, summons, or orders, are recorded. The system connects directly with eCourts, which allows for faster updates and removes long delays.

He described the core issue clearly. The challenge lies not in planning, but in the pressure to execute without errors. By using Litigal, that pressure moves from manual work to a digitally reliable process. Field agents now receive their tasks through a mobile app. Lawyers get immediate access to case files. Managers can view dashboards showing timelines and cost-efficiency. The automation also helps identify delays and fix them early.

The impact is measurable. According to Credgenics, legal process efficiency improved by up to 60%, and the cost of collections reduced by 40%. These figures reflect Sandeep’s standard for scaling legal effectiveness. He did not just introduce technology, he changed the way the entire function operates.
Today, IIFL is no longer struggling with outdated records. Every legal step is tracked, from morning filings to evening hearings, with digital records and timestamps. This results in better accountability and fewer errors. The focus is not on speeding up the courts, but on making legal teams work more efficiently. Sandeep built these systems so legal teams could focus on strategic thinking, not just routine tasks.

Building the Digital Legal Ecosystem

Once the platform was operational, the next task was integration. Technology alone could not deliver results unless people used it. Sandeep focused on building trust and adoption from the ground up. Legal teams, advocate partners, and technology vendors had their doubts. He addressed these concerns by encouraging gradual improvement rather than expecting complete transformation overnight. His message was clear, it is not about working more, but about working wisely. With each successful trial, the technology felt less unfamiliar and more necessary.

He arranged structured onboarding sessions with advocates and ensured the platforms offered useful features such as case reminders, cost tracking, and regular status updates. Their support was essential. Once senior counsel adopted the system, others followed. Sandeep understood that most people do not reject change itself. They reject being left out. He involved every stakeholder, giving them a role in shaping the outcome.

Within IIFL, he developed a core group inside the Legal Recovery team. These were legal professionals who acted as super users, solving issues on the ground and training others. He believed that change happens through people, not software alone. This approach helped reduce the burden of training and improved acceptance across the board.

The larger lesson is clear, not all innovation must be dramatic, but every implementation must have people aligned. The introduction of Litigal was not just a product launch; it marked a shift in mindset. With multiple tools in play, Credgenics for case management, Billzy for payment links, and eCourts for filing, some degree of fragmentation was expected. Still, his team built a system that brought everything together. As a result, borrowers face fewer hurdles, field agents follow clear workflows, legal leaders get better oversight, and recovery teams close cases more efficiently and at lower cost.

In the end, systems fail not because they are poorly planned, but because they are poorly executed. Sandeep’s strength lies in managing this transition. He protected the core of legal processes while raising the overall standard of performance. The result is a more agile, aligned, and efficient recovery function across IIFL.

The Strategic Impact on IIFL’s Business

Once adoption was in place and workflows stabilized, the focus shifted to outcomes. Sandeep’s efforts in building a strong digital foundation began to show measurable results, not just in legal metrics but in business performance.

The process of digitizing legal recovery under his leadership supported IIFL’s broader communication with investors and the board by showing stronger resolution of non-performing assets, improved handling of stressed accounts, and a more stable return on investment. As one of India’s top seven financial conglomerates, IIFL must consistently demonstrate strong asset quality. The use of Litigal has been a key part of maintaining that discipline.

Performance data clearly reflects the impact. After implementation, Credgenics reported a 25 percent increase in collections, a 30 percent improvement in turnaround time, and a 40 percent reduction in operational costs across the collections division. For IIFL, these results contribute to lower provisioning, stronger cash flow, and more stable profit margins.

Sandeep’s role has been strategic. Legal recovery has moved from being treated as a back-end responsibility to becoming a driver of revenue. He reshaped this perspective within the organization. Instead of reacting by filing cases and waiting for court dates, the legal function began working proactively, reaching out to borrowers early, tracking case timelines carefully, and encouraging digital settlements. This hybrid approach has led to more efficient case handling, reduced delays, and less dependence on personal follow-ups.

This approach reflects a shift from working harder to working with more precision. In front of creditors, regulators, and investors, his team is now able to present a clear legal pipeline, projected returns, and outcomes with measurable impact. This level of transparency improves corporate governance and builds confidence. When IIFL was fined by SEBI in 2023 for unrelated custodial naming issues, the company’s structured legal and recovery processes played a key role in maintaining its overall credibility.

The larger realization is clear, a legal system built for efficiency and visibility acts as a risk control mechanism, not just a compliance function. Legal recovery no longer only protects the company; it adds value to the balance sheet. Sandeep has ensured that IIFL’s financial records reflect this shift.

What’s Next: Scaling, Refining, Reinventing

With early results in place and the legal function repositioned as a value driver, Sandeep is now focused on the next phase of transformation. His vision builds on the foundation already established, moving from stability to scalability. The next stage involves advanced layers of artificial intelligence, including systems that can predict legal outcomes, analyse borrower sentiment, and automatically convert voice data into usable formats.

He is working with technology partners to introduce legal risk alerts at an early stage, where indicators of non-payment can feed directly into legal workflows. In his view, the challenge lies not in designing the system but in expecting it to function without variation. He believes the solution is to develop AI tools that can respond dynamically to shifts in data, instead of systems that rely on flawless input.

The targets are clear. He aims to predict litigation outcomes, score legal risk across different borrower profiles, and promote faster settlements through digital tools. Pilots are already underway to test chatbots and automated voice response systems for managing routine legal queries. This allows simpler cases to be resolved through automation, giving legal teams more capacity to focus on strategic issues.

Sandeep’s framework treats every case with importance, even if it does not require legal counsel. His systems identify the right escalation path, who engages via chat, who needs a call, and who should receive formal notice. The team tracks these groups in real time and applies digital pressure where necessary before moving toward legal escalation. The result is a more intelligent collection process and a more precise legal response.

Looking ahead, his plans to roll out this model across IIFL’s group companies, including wealth management, brokerage, and housing finance divisions. His goal is to make Litigal the standard legal operating platform across the organisation. This plan focuses not only on short-term savings but on building a structured legal ecosystem that supports long-term growth.

Through all these phases, one idea continues to guide him, real success comes from working intelligently, not just working continuously. That principle has shaped the development of Litigal, influenced IIFL’s legal transformation, and will define how the next phase unfolds. Sandeep’s work represents more than process design. It represents a shift in how legal teams contribute to business strategy.