Shivangi Singh

The Supreme Court’s judgment in the present case involves restricting the NCLT from providing for a halt to the resolution process, but this is an economically ineffective move as the NCLT and NCALT’s provision to halt the resolution process will give banks and corporate creditors the opportunity to minimize their losses on default loans. The Supreme Court’s decision is based on the needs of the general public and made from the point of view of policy makers.

In this through upholding the substantive validity of the provision in the SICA and Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, the Supreme Court has given a major sigh of relief to the aggrieved bondholders.

The observations of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in this case may be viewed as a broad affirmation of the NCLAT ruling in Kirusa Software Case where it was held that a ‘dispute’ pursuant to Section 8(2) must not be pending in a suit or arbitration proceeding; however, the same must be ‘pending’ and cannot be raised by the corporate debtor for the first time while it is pending.

This decision brought a new tool to the homebuyers’ arsenal by giving them an extra recourse against the developers, it did not leave the developer in a lurch because it also offered an assortment of protections that the developer might use to hold wily allottees at bay.