National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT): A Two-Member Bench comprising of S.J. Mukhopadhaya (Chairperson) and Bansi Lal Bhat (Member-Judicial), JJ. dismissed an appeal filed against the order of National Company Law Tribunal (New Delhi).
NCLT had admitted the application filed by the respondent (operational creditor) under Section 9 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 and passed order of moratorium. The appellant (promoter of the corporate debtor) submitted that there were cases under Section 138 and 141 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 pending before the competent court of jurisdiction. The appellant relied on R. Vijayan v. Baby, (2012) 1 SCC 260 for the proposition that proceedings under Section 138 arena of recovery of money. Therefore, according to the appellant, there existed a dispute between the parties and hence the said application could not be admitted.
The Appellate Tribunal was not inclined to accept the submissions of the appellant. It referred to Innoventive Industries Ltd. v. ICICI Bank, (2018) 1 SCC 407 and was of the opinion that “pendency of the case under Sections 138 and 141, even if accepted as recovery proceeding, cannot be held to be a dispute pending before a court of law.” Therefore, the Appellate Tribunal held that the pendency of the case as aforementioned actually amounted to admission of debt endnote existence of dispute. The appeal was, thus, dismissed. [Sudhi Sachdev v. APPL Industries Ltd., 2018 SCC OnLine NCLAT 775, dated 13-11-2018]