National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT): The Bench of Justice S.J. Mukhopadhaya, Chairperson and Justice Bansi Lal Bhat, Member (Judicial) directed the National Company Law Tribunal (Ahmedabad) to pass appropriate order on application filed by Financial Creditor under Section 7 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 without adjourning the matter further.
The present appeal was preferred by Corporate Debtor against an order of NCLT whereby it had adjourned the matter giving time to Financial Creditor for submitting clarifications/removal of defects. Pratik Tripathi, Company Secretary appearing for Corporate Debtor submitted that the matter was pending for one year and NCLT had not passed any order either admitting or rejecting the application filed under Section 7.
The Appellate Tribunal noted that the matter in issue was already settled in Innoventive Industries Ltd. v. ICICI Bank, (2018) 1 SCC 407 which made clear that NCLT is not required to decide mismatch of ‘debt’ and it cannot be a ground reject the claim if the amount due is more than Rs 1 lakh and there is a ‘default’. The Appellate Tribunal did not see any reason as to why NCLT kept adjourning the case which was pending for admission since 2017. It was categorically observed,
“The Insolvency Code provides a specific time frame to complete the process and the Adjudicating Authority should take it seriously and cannot adjourn the matter on one or the other ground…”
In such view of the matter, the appeal was disposed of by directing NCLT decide the pending application on merits on the next date without adjourning the matter. [Dhar Textile Mills Ltd. v. Asset Reconstruction Co. (India) Ltd., 2019 SCC OnLine NCLAT 3, Order dated 07-01-2019]
