National Company Law Tribunal, New Delhi: The bench of Abni Rajan Kumar Sinha, Judicial Member and Hemant Kumar Sarangi, Technical Member has held, that default made in payment of instalment amount as per the terms of the settlement agreement does not fall under the definition of operational debt.
Facts of the case
Operational creditor, Ahluwali Contracts (India) Pvt. Ltd. entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)/ Settlement Agreement with corporate debtor, Logix Infratech Pvt. Ltd. on 30-09-2019 for the final settlement against the work done by the operational creditor according to the ‘Work Contracts’.
The operational debtor defaulted in making payments of instalments as determined under the settlement agreement. Operational creditor filed a company petition seeking to initiate the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) against corporate debtor by invoking the provisions of Section 9 r/w Rule 6 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC) for a resolution of Operational Debt of Rs 7,72,00,000.
Issue Whether the breach of terms and conditions mentioned under the settlement agreement comes within the purview of ‘operational debt’?
Analysis and decision
Firstly, the Bench noted that operational debt means a claim in respect of provision of goods and services including employment. In the present petition, the claim of the operational creditor did not fall under the category of either goods or services provided by the operational debtor. Rather, the present application was being pressed by the operational creditor only in respect of default made due to the breach of terms and conditions mentioned under the settlement agreement.
At this juncture, the bench referred to the decision of NCLT, Allahabad in Delhi Control Devices Pvt. Ltd. v. Fedders Electric and Engineering Ltd. (Company Petition (IB) No. 343/ALD/ 2018 wherein the bench held that, “unpaid instalment as per the agreement cannot be treated as operational debt a per Section 5(21) of IBC. The failure or Breach of settlement agreement can’t be a ground to trigger CIRP against corporate debtor under the provision of IBC 2016 and remedy may lie elsewhere not necessarily before the Adjudicating Authority”. A similar view was followed in the case Nitin Gupta v. International Land Developers Pvt. Ltd. (IB No. 507/ND/2020).
Hence, the bench applied the same principle as laid down in the aforementioned cases and considered that the default of payment of settlement agreement does not come under the definition of operational debt.
Therefore, the bench dismissed the application.
[Ahluwali Contracts (India) Pvt. Ltd. v Logix Infratech Pvt. Ltd., 2022 SCC OnLine NCLT 169, decided on 03-06-2022]
Advocates before the Tribunal
For the Applicant: Adv. Dhruv Rohatgi
For the Respondent: Adv. Nitish K. Sharma
