The Supreme Court on Monday said that it will hear next week the Dalmia Bharat-controlled Rajputana Properties’ appeal against the NCLAT order that allowed Committee of Creditors (CoC) of beleaguered Binani Cement to consider the revised bid of UltraTech Cement and also barred the resolution professional (RP) from deciding the eligibility of the revised bids but only submit its comments to the lenders. The Dalmia firm has sought “setting aside of all consequential steps/actions taken by RP Vijaykumar V Iyer and others pursuant to the NCLAT’s May 15 order that asked RP to submit the revised resolution plans for Binani Cement in a sealed cover before the CoC along with his opinion on questions pertaining to conformity with the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.
It had further asked the CoC to record reasons for accepting or refusing a resolution plan as well as the opinion of the board of directors. The final resolution plan would be subject to the outcome of the UtraTech’s appeal before NCLAT.
Debt-ridden Binani Cement is undergoing insolvency proceedings for dues of more than Rs 7,000 crore.
According to Rajputana Properties, the appellate tribunal while ironically referring to the provisions and scheme of Code has erroneously laid down a procedure completely unknown to the statutory framework devised by the IBC. On May 4, NCLAT had also in an interim order upheld the order of NCLT’s Kolkata bench in an appeal moved by Rajputana Properties by allowing the RP professional and CoC to consider the revised resolution plan submitted by UltraTech, while offering Rajputana Properties an opportunity to revise its resolution plan of Rs 6,930 crore, which includes infusion of working capital and capex.
UltraTech Cement’s revised offer stood at Rs 7,900 crore, against its earlier bid of over Rs 7,200 crore. Significantly, Rajputana Properties has not raised its offer of around Rs 6,930 crore for the debt-laden cement maker. The petition further stated that the Dalmia group’s offer was rejected despite the same having been approved by CoC with an overwhelming majority of 99.43%. Instead of accepting approved bid, NCLAT directed consideration of a revised non-responsive and illegal offer mooted by UltraTech Cement, an unsuccessful bidder, it added.
Rajputana Properties further said that failure to accept its bid would not only render its appeal infructous and the right to appeal under the Code, it would also lead to conflicting decisions and multiple litigations as a result of which there would be no finality in the corporate insolvency resolution process which would ultimately be to the detriment of the corporate debtor.