JUDGMENT

Jyoti Singh, J. - Present petition has been filed under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (hereinafter referred to as the "Act") seeking directions to restrain the Respondent and/or any person claiming through and/or under it, from selling/transferring/alienating and/or encumbering and/or creating any third party rights in respect of the shares of Petitioner Nos. 1 to 5, pledged in favour of the Respondent as security for a loan taken by Petitioner No. 1.

2. Case as set out by the Petitioners is that Petitioner No. 1 is a Limited Liability Partnership Firm engaged inter alia in the business of investment including advisory services in wealth management. Petitioner Nos. 2 to 4 have resigned from the Partnership Firm on 31.01.2020 and currently Petitioner Nos. 5 & 6 are partners of Petitioner No. 1. Respondent is a duly incorporated and registered Non-Banking Finance Company.

3. Vide a Sanction Letter dated 28.08.2019, Respondent sanctioned a LAS Facility for an additional amount of Rs. 100,00,00,000/- in favour of Petitioners. Petitioner No. 1 already had a sanctioned loan in its favour to the tune of Rs. 250,00,00,000/- and, therefore, as on 28.08.2019 the total amount of sanctioned loan in favour of Petitioner No. 1 was Rs. 350,00,00,000/-. On 11.11.2019, one of the Petitioners executed a Loancum-Pledge Agreement (first Loan Agreement) with the Respondent and vide this Agreement, Petitioners pledged all securities owned by them, to secure the LAS facility and were thereby able to provide security to the extent of Rs. 60,54,12,342/-.

4. Shortly thereafter, on 12.12.2019, Loan Disbursement Kit, containing inter alia; (i) a Loan-cum-Pledge Agreement signed between Petitioner Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 5 and the Respondent (second Loan Agreement) (ii) a Demand Promissory Note issued by Petitioner No. 2 in favour of the Respondent in the sum of Rs. 150,00,00,000/-; (iii) a Letter of Continuity in respect of the Demand Promissory Note (iv) an Irrevocable Power of Attorney executed by Petitioner Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 5 in favour of the Respondent, was executed. The various documents mentioned above are hereinafter referred to as "loan documents".

5. On 17.01.2020, Petitioner No. 4 was added as a Partner of Petitioner No. 1. Reconstitution of Petitioner No. 1 brought about a corresponding change amongst the Petitioners, towards discharge of their obligations in respect of the said loan. Petitioner No. 1 was the Principal borrower/pledgor from December, 2019, while Petitioner Nos. 2 to 5 stood as co-borrowers/pledgors.

6. It is the case of the Petitioners that Petitioner Nos. 1 to 5 complied with all the obligations under the loan documents, including but not limited to repayments thereof, maintenance of Minimum-Security cover/threshold/margin, etc. As on 27.02.2020, the outstanding loan amount was Rs. 185,18,72,811.98/-.

7. In February, 2020 as is well known, there was an outbreak of Covid-19 Pandemic which wrecked havoc across all Industries, market infrastructure as also trade and business, at a Global level. This unprecedented Pandemic adversely impacted the business and cash flow of the Petitioners as the stock markets plummeted globally. Uncertainties caused due to the Pandemic, triggered sell offs in all the stock markets.

8. On 06.03.2020, Respondent sent a Loan Recall Notice to Petitioner No. 2, invoking Clause 4 of the First Loan Agreement. As per the said Notice, the outstanding loan amount was Rs. 168,12,39,830