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2021 Supreme(SC) 23

SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
Rohinton Fali Nariman, Navin Sinha, K.M. Joseph, JJ.
MANISH KUMAR - Petitioners
Versus
UNION OF INDIA AND OTHERS — Respondents
Writ Petition(C) No. 26 of 2020 with Writ Petition (C) No. 53/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 28/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 47/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 27/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 73/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 328/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 210/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 191/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 164/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 163/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 166/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 173/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 182/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 176/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 177/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 257/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 341/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 267/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 333/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 337/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 388/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 402/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 390/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 393/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 783/2020; Transferred Case(C) No. 228/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 579/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 806/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 714/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 642/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 805/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 19/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 33/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 75/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 165/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 850/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 374/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 229/2020; Writ Petition (C) No. 228/2020 And Writ Petition(C) No. 209/2020
Decided on : 19-01-2021

Advocates Appeared:
For the Appellant :Mr. Vaibhav Manu Srivastava, Advocate, Mr. Akash Vajpayee, Advocate, Mr. Akshay Ravi, Advocate, Mr. Krishnamohan K. Menon, Advocate, Mr. Chaitanyashil Priyadarshi, Advocate, Ms. Dania Nayyar, Advocate, Ms. Parul Sachdeva, Advocate, Mr. Namit Saxena, Advocate, Mr. Piyush Singh, Advocate, Mr. Aditya Parolia, Advocate, Mr. Akshay Srivastava, Advocate, Mr. Nithin Chandran, Advocate, Mr. Rajesh Kumar, Advocate, Mr. Gaurav Goel, Advocate, Mr. Ashwarya Sinha, Advocate, Mr. Deepak Anand, Advocate, Mr. Mareesh Pravir Sahay, Advocate, Ms. Eccha Shukla, Advocate, Ms. Awantika, Advocate, Mr. Sudhir Kumar Gupta, Advocate, Mr. Shikhil Suri, Advocate, Mr. Shiv Kumar Suri, Advocate, Ms. Madhu Suri, Advocate, Ms. Shilpa Saini, Advocate, Ms. Nikita Thapar, Advocate, Ms. Vinishma Kaul, Advocate, Ms. Priyanjali Singh, Advocate, Ms. Rashi Bansal, Advocate, Mr. Dinesh Chandra Pandey, Advocate, Mr. Dhruv Gupta, Advocate, Mr. Arjun Singh Bhati, Advocate, Mr. Annam D. N. Rao, Advocate, Mr. Rahul Mishra, Advocate, Mr. Saurabh Trivedi, Advocate, Ms. Purti Marwaha Gupta, Advocate, Ms. Anindita Pujari, Advocate, Mr. Arvind Kumar Gupta, Advocate, Ms. Henna George, Advocate, Ms. Deval Singh, Advocate, Mr. Om Narayan, Advocate, Mr. E. C. Agrawala, Advocate, Ms. Bharti Tyagi, Advocate, Mr. Rajesh Goyal, Advocate, Mr. Sumit Gehlawat, Advocate, Mr. Tervernder Singh, Advocate, Mr. Abhishek Bharadwaj, Advocate, Mr. Pai Amit, Advocate, Ms. Pankhuri Bharadwaj, Advocate, Mr. Rakesh Taneja, Advocate, Mr. Pai Amit, Advocate, Mr. Parshuram A.L., Advocate, Mr. Rohit R. Saboo, Advocate, Mr. Kumar Vaibhav, Advocate, Mr. Ankit Agrawal, Advocate, Mr. Rahat Bansal, Advocate, Mr. Annam Venkatesh, Advocate, Mr. S.K. Gandhi, Advocate, Ms. Manjula Gandhi, Advocate, Mr. Shiv Kumar Pandey, Advocate, Mr. Shivanshu Kumar, Advocate, Mr. Chandrashekhar A. Chakalabbi, Advocate, Mr. Himanshu, Advocate, Mr. Awanish Kumar, Advocate, Mr. Anshul Rai, Advocate, for M/S. Dharmaprabhas Law Associates, Advocate, Mr. Mayank Pandey, Advocate, Ms. Misha Rohatgi, Advocate, Mr. Pallav Mongia, Advocate
For the Respondent:Mr. Arvind Kumar Sharma, Advocate, Ms. Charu Ambwani, Advocate, Mr. Sajan Poovayya, Sr. Advocate, Mr. Amar Gupta, Advocate, Mr. Divyam Agarwal, Advocate, Mr. Daksh Ahluwalia, Advocate, Ms. Pallavi Kumar, Advocate, Mr. Adhiraj Gupta, Advocate, Mr. Pratibhanu Singh, Advocate, Mr. Shikhar Maniar, Advocate, Ms. Raksha Aggarwal, Advocate, Mr. Hirendranath, Advocate, Mr. Santanam Swaminadhan, Advocate, Ms. Prakruti Golechha, Advocate, Ms. Abhilasha Shrawat, Advocate, Mrs. Aarthi Rajan, Advocate, Mr. Keshav Mohan, Advocate, Mr. Prashant Kumar, Advocate, Mr. R.K Awasthi, Advocate, Mr. Piyush Vatsa, Advocate, Ms. Ritu Arora, Advocate, Mr. Santosh Kumar - I, Advocate, Mr. Rajesh P., Advocate, Mr. Manoranjan Sharma, Advocate, Mr. Prabhakar Tiwari, Advocate, Mr. Krishna Dev Jagarlamudi, Advocate, Respondent-in-person Mr. Vikram Hegde, Advocate, Mr. Rahul Kumar, Advocate

Headnote:

Constitution of India , 1950 - Article 32 - Limitation Act, 1963 – Section 137 and 5 - Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 - Section 7(1), 10, 11 and 32A - Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Act 2020 - Sections 3, 4 and 10 – Application - Corporate insolvency resolution - A financial creditor either by itself or jointly with other financial creditors, or any other person on behalf of the financial creditor, as may be notified by Central Government, may file an application for initiating corporate insolvency resolution process against a corporate debtor before Adjudicating Authority when a default has occurred - Financial creditors, referred to in clauses (a) and (b) of sub-section (6A) of section 21, an application for initiating corporate insolvency resolution process against corporate debtor shall be filed jointly by not less than one hundred of such creditors in same class or not less than ten per cent, of total number of such creditors in same class - An application for initiating corporate insolvency resolution process against corporate debtor shall be filed jointly by not less than one hundred of such allottees - Whether an application under Section 7 should be admitted – Held, If any of petitioners move applications in respect of same default, as alleged in their applications, within a period of two months from today, also compliant with either first or second proviso under Section 7(1), as case may be, then, they will be exempted from requirement of payment of court fees, in manner, which we have detailed in paragraph just herein before, - Court make it clear that time limit of two months is fixed only for conferring the benefits of exemption from court fees and for condonation of delay caused by applications pending before Adjudicating Authority - In other words, it is always open to petitioners to file applications, even after the period of two months and seek benefit of condonation of delay under Section 5 of Limitation Act, in regard to period, during which, applications were pending before Adjudicating Authority, which were filed under unamended Section 7, as also thereafter - Writ Petitions and Transferred Case will stand dismissed.

JUDGMENT

K.M. Joseph, J.

1. The petitioners have approached this Court under Article 32 of the Constitution of India. They call in question Sections 3, 4 and 10 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Act 2020 (hereinafter referred to as the impugned amendments, for short) . Section 3 of the impugned amendment, amends Section 7(1) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (hereinafter referred to as the Code , for short) . Section 4 of the impugned amendment, incorporates an additional Explanation in Section 11 of the Code. Section 10 of the impugned amendment inserts Section 32A in the Code.

2. Section 7(1) of the Code before the amendment read as follows:

    "7. Initiation of corporate insolvency resolution process by financial creditor:

    (1) A financial creditor either by itself or jointly with other financial creditors, or any other person on behalf of the financial creditor, as may be notified by the Central Government, may file an application for initiating corporate insolvency resolution process against a corporate debtor before the Adjudicating Authority when a default has occurred."

    Explanation- For the purposes of this sub section, a default includes a default in respect of a financial debt owed not only to the applicant financial creditor but to any other financial creditor of the corporate debtor.

    The amendment to the same by Section 3 of the impugned amendment incorporates 3 provisos to Section 7(1), which reads as under:

    "Provided that for the financial creditors, referred to in clauses (a) and (b) of sub-section (6A) of section 21, an application for initiating corporate insolvency resolution process against the corporate debtor shall be filed jointly by not less than one hundred of such creditors in the same class or not less than ten per cent, of the total number of such creditors in the same class, whichever is less:

    Provided further that for financial creditors who are allottees under a real estate project, an application for initiating corporate insolvency resolution process against the corporate debtor shall be filed jointly by not less than one hundred of such allottees under the same real estate project or not less than ten per cent, of the total number of such allottees under the same real estate project, whichever is less:

    Provided also that where an application for initiating the corporate insolvency resolution process against a corporate debtor has been filed by a financial creditor referred to in the first and second provisos and has not been admitted by the Adjudicating Authority before the commencement of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Act, 2020, such application shall be modified to comply with the requirements of the first or second proviso within thirty days of the commencement of the said Act, failing which the application shall be deemed to be withdrawn before its admission."

3. Section 11 before the amendment read as follows:

    "11. Persons not entitled to make application. - The following persons shall not be entitled to make an application to initiate corporate insolvency resolution process under this Chapter, namely: -

    (a) a corporate debtor undergoing a corporate insolvency resolution process; or

    (b) a corporate debtor having completed corporate insolvency resolution process twelve months preceding the date of making of the application; or

    (c) a corporate debtor or a financial creditor who has violated any of the terms of resolution plan which was approved twelve months before the date of making of an application under this Chapter; or

    (d) a corporate debtor in respect of whom a liquidation order has been made. Explanation 1 [I]. - For the purposes of this section, a corporate debtor includes a corporate applicant in respect of such corporate debtor."

    The explanation which was inserte


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