National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT): A Bench of S.J. Mukhopadhaya, Chairperson and Justice A.I.S Cheema, Member (Judicial) and Kanthi Narahari, Member (Technical) upheld the impugned decision whereby the appellant’s (Operational Creditor’s) application under Section 9 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, filed against the respondent (Corporate Debtor) was rejected.
Operational Creditor’s case was that despite repeated requests, the Corporate Debtor failed to make payments. Per contra, the Corporate Debtor submitted that it was willing to pay the entire amount subject to the condition that the Operational Creditor gets himself registered under the Goods and Services Tax, 2017. The Corporate Debtor also offered a demand draft to the Operational Creditor, which he refused to accept.
Aditya Diwan, Arpit Marwah and Karan Nagpal, Advocates appeared for the Operational Creditor. Per contra, the Corporate Debtor was represented by Y. Suryanarayana, Advocate.
On considering the facts and circumstances, the Appellate Tribunal was of the view that the Operational Creditor initiated the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (“CIRP”) with fraudulent and malicious intent for any purpose other than the resolution of insolvency or liquidation and therefore it was clearly covered under Section 65 IBC (fraudulent or malicious initiation of proceedings).
In such view of the matter, the Appellate Tribunal was inclined to interfere with the impugned order. The appeal was, thus, dismissed. [Praveen Kumar Mundra v. CIL Securities Ltd., 2019 SCC OnLine NCLAT 334, decided on 14-05-2019]
