National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT): The Bench of Justice S.J. Mukhopadhaya, Chairperson and Justice Bansi Lal Bhat, Member (Judicial) allowed an appeal filed against the order of National Company Law Tribunal (New Delhi) whereby it had admitted respondent’s application under Section 7 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 and appointed an Interim Resolution Professional.
Senior Advocate K. Venugopal assisted by Pawan Sharma, Anuj Shah and Rishabh Sharma, Advocates representing the appellant–Shareholder of the Corporate Debtor, submitted that NCLT failed to notice inter alia that the parties had already settled the claim. The factum of the settlement was accepted by Ashish Agarwal, Advocate appearing for the respondent.
It was informed by the Interim Resolution Professional that advertisement was issued asking for claims but Committee of Creditors was not yet constituted.
The Appellate Tribunal relied on Swiss Ribbons (P) Ltd. v. Union of India, 2019 SCC OnLine SC 73 wherein the Supreme Court held, “at any stage where the committee of creditors is not yet constituted, a party can approach the NCLT directly, which Tribunal may, in exercise of its inherent powers under Rule 11 of the NCLT Rules, 2016, allow or disallow an application for withdrawal or settlement.”
In such view of the matter, the impugned order of NCLT was set aside as the parties had settled the claim before the constitution of Committee of Creditors and the respondent did not want to proceed with the matter. The appeal was thus allowed. [Arjun Puri v. Kunal Prasad, 2019 SCC OnLine NCLAT 5, dated 31-01-2019]
