Deloitte Haskins & Sells on Monday moved the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) against the order of the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) that ruled that it had the jurisdiction to hear a plea praying for a five-year ban on the auditing firm for allegedly colluding in the IL&FS case.

The NCLAT is likely to hear the pleas on Tuesday. The Mumbai bench of NCLT had on August 9 dismissed the plea made by the former auditors of IL&FS group challenging the tribunal’s jurisdiction to ban them under Section 140 (5) of the Companies Act 2013.

On June 8, the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) had filed a petition with the NCLT stating that the auditors knowingly did not report the true state of financial affairs at IL&FS. Deloitte’s counsel Kapil Sibal told NCLAT that Section 140 (5) of the Companies Act does not apply to the UK-based firm since it had resigned as auditor of IL&FS before the scam broke out.

Read| IL&FS case: Kotak-led board to meet on August 21 on speeding up group firm’s resolution process

The MCA’s Serious Fraud Investigation Office, in its complaint filed in May, had said the audit firms knowingly withheld crucial information, including the negative net owned fund and credit adequacy ratio of IL&FS Financial Services (IFIN), which directly led to losses for creditors and investors.

Meanwhile, the NCLAT will hear on September 16 the auditors’ plea against making them parties in IL&FS case. The NCLT-Mumbai allowed the government’s petition to freeze the assets of the auditors. The financial affairs of the IL&FS group came under scrutiny last year after it defaulted on short-term and long-term debt obligations to the tune of Rs 91,000 crore.