National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT): The Coram of Justice Jarat Kumar Jain, Judicial Member and Ashok Kumar Mishra, Technical Member, dismissed an appeal on no finding any infirmity in the impugned order. However, requested the adjudicating authority to consider the application before approving any Resolution Plan.
In the instant matter an impugned order of the National Company Law Tribunal, Guwahati was challenged on the ground that the Resolution Plan was accepted by 91.84% of the members of the ‘Committee of Creditors’ (CoC) but the approval for the same is pending before the Adjudicating Authority.
The Adjudicating Authority was of the opinion,
“…we are of the considered view that the Suspended Management of the Corporate Debtor (CD) be given a chance to submit Resolution Plan as prayed for. And go by the set precedents the pleadings of the Suspended Management to give him a chance for submitting a Resolution Plan, after the final judgment, being as an MSME Unit is reasonable”.
The Adjudicating Authority had also raised an issue of how the ‘Financial Creditor’ claimed 43 times of the amount of loan disbursed 21 years back when the Financial Creditor was under RBI Regulations, and the issue that the guarantee was invoked by the original lenders – IBBI for an amount of Rs.5,42,94,868, which was 24 times of the claimed amount in 18 years.
While referring to the judgments cited by the Appellants, the Tribunal stated that the applicability of the same was under dark as the Adjudicating Authority had only permitted for giving an opportunity to MSME to submit a concrete, composite, feasible and a viable resolution plan, and no other one was allowed to submit any plan other than the Resolution plan already submitted by the Resolution Applicant.
The Tribunal further noted,
“…there is no harm in giving an opportunity to the MSME in accordance with the provisions of the Code for keeping the promotion of entrepreneurship alive. The Adjudicating Authority has only provided an opportunity to the MSME and has given the liberty to the CoC to negotiate with existing Resolution Applicant and MSME unit also and accept the one which is commercially viable and technically feasible”.
On not finding any infirmity in the order, the Appellate Tribunal dismissed the appeal[PLBB Products Pvt. Ltd. v. Piyush Periwal, Company Appeal (AT) (Insolvency) No. 160 of 2021, decided on 07-09-2021]
Agatha Shukla, Editorial Assistant has reported this brief.
For the Appellant :
Mr Abhijeet Sinha, Mr Lzafeer Ahmad BF and Mr Aditya Shukla, Advocates.
For the Respondents :
Mr Jishnu Saha, Sr. Advocate with Mr Abhijit Sarkar, Advocates for Respondent No. 1.
Mr Sidhartha Barua and Mr Praful Jindal, Advocates for Respondent No. 2.
Mr Anand Verma and Mr Abhishek Prasad, Advocates for Respondent No. 3.