National Company Appellate Tribunal, Mumbai: The Bench of Ashok Bhushan, J., Chairperson, M. Satyanarayana Murthy, Judicial Member, and Naresh Salecha, Technical member has dismissed a company appeal and has held that interest on delayed payment is also a form of debt and therefore, would form a part of the operational debt under Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016.
Background of the case
Operational Creditor supplies different types of yarns and has supplied goods to Bombay Rayons Fashions Ltd., Corporate Debtor. The Operational Creditor raised invoices between March, 2017 and January 2020, wherein, Operational Creditor supplied goods for Rs. 2,02,26,017/- under nine invoices. The Corporate Debtor paid three invoices with substantial delay; for one invoice part payment made and remaining five invoices, Corporate Debtor failed to make any payment.
Operational Creditor filed an application under Section 9 seeking to initiate the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) against Corporate Debtor. The Adjudicating Authority admitted the application and approved initiation of CIRP along with appointment of Insolvency Resolution Professional. The company appeal was filed against the order passed by the Adjudicating Authority dated 07-06-2022.
Analysis and decision
First, the Bench referred to the definition of debt, as per Section 3(11) of the IBC, “a debt means a liability or obligation in respect of a claim which is due from any person and includes a financial debt and operational debt.” Therefore, the Bench observed that the definition of debt includes ‘claim’ which is being defined under Section 3(6) of the IBC. As per the provision of IBC a claim means-
“(a) a right to payment, whether or not such right is reduced to judgment, fixed, disputed, undisputed, legal, equitable, secured or unsecured;
(b) right to remedy for breach of contract under any law for the time being in force, if such breach gives rise to a right to payment, whether or not such right is reduced to judgment, fixed, matured, unmatured, disputed, undisputed, secured or unsecured.”
Further, the Bench observed that vide the Notification No S.O. 1205 (E) dated 24.03.2020, issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the threshold Limit to initiate a CIRP has increased from Rupees 1 Lakh to Rupees 1 Crore.
Therefore, in the light of the above analysis, the Bench held that the total amount for maintainability of claim will include both principal debt amount as well as interest on delayed payment which was clearly stipulated in the invoice. Thus, in light of this the outstanding debt amounts to Rs. 1,60,87,838/- (principal debt amount of Rs. 97,87,220/- plus interest @18% p.a.).
Hence, as the total debt outstanding was above Rs. 1 crore as per requirement of Section 4 IBC read with notification No. S.O 1205 (E), the present Application was maintainable.
[Prashat Agarwal v. Vikash Parasrampuria, Company Appeal (AT) (Ins) No. 690 of 2022, decided on- 15-07-2022]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Abhijeet Sinha, Sunil Vyas, Nausher Kohli, Palzer Moktan, Dipti Das, Deep Morabia, and Aditya Shukla, Advocates, for the Appellant;
Saurabh Pandya, Viraj Parikh, Mahur Mahajan, Advocates, for R-1;
Rubina Khan & Rohit Gupta, Advocates, for R-2.