MUMBAI:Vacating its earlier stay, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on Friday allowed lenders of Bhushan Power & Steel to finalise a bid for the debt-ridden company. The next hearing will be on August 1.
The tribunal also directed the Committee of Creditors (CoC) to consider the resolution plans submitted by three firms — Tata Steel, Liberty House and JSW Steel — and vote the best plan, which is in consonance with Section 30(2) and also viable, feasible and acceptable to the CoC.
The CoC would call for urgent meeting to take the resolution plan for discussion and approval, said a two-member bench headed by Chairman Justice S J Mukhopadhaya. “Resolution professional (RP), after consulting CoC, will invite operational creditors and all three resolution applicants will remain present on the date of consideration of the resolution plan. The suspended board of directors are also allowed to attend the meetings in which resolution plan will be considered by CoC,” NCLAT said in its orders.
The tribunal further said that CoC will place selected resolution plan before adjudicating authority, which may approve it, but will not give effect without prior approval of the tribunal (NCLAT).During its last hearing, NCLAT pulled up the RP for not following its previous orders to allow operational creditors, who alleged their representatives weren’t allowed to attend the CoC meeting.
Moreover, Liberty House, a resolution applicant, has alleged that information was not supplied about the meeting and on July 11, RP gave a 19-page checklist seeking the company’s compliance on 29 A of Insovency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).Earlier, the company’s lenders had rejected the resolution plan submitted by Liberty House citing delay, following which the UK-based company moved NCLT.