The insolvency process of debt-ridden Reliance Capital is set to be delayed as the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Tuesday stayed the resolution process on a plea by Torrent Group. This means the lenders would not be able to take a call on Hinduja Group’s revised offer till January 12, when the NCLT will next hear the matter.

The interim stay was provided after Torrent Group filed an interlocutory application on Monday. Torrent Investments, a group company filed a petition before NCLT seeking to direct RCap’s administrator not to accept Hinduja’s revised bids that were submitted a day after the e-auctions ended. The petition was filed on Monday, a day before the crucial committee of creditors’ (CoC) meeting was scheduled to take place to finalise the resolution process and decide the winning bidder.

Also Read: Cosmea-Piramal exits Reliance Capital bidding race

The tribunal also asked the administrator to file a reply on Torrent’s petition. Following the order, the CoC has sought time to move the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT). If that happens, the insolvency proceedings, the deadline for closure of which is January 31, would get delayed.

On December 23, Hinduja Group had revised its bid for RCap with a Net Present Value (NPV) offer of Rs 9,000 crore, with an offer to provide the entire sum upfront in cash, much above Torrent Group’s highest bid of Rs 8,640 crore. The Hinduja Group’s renewed offer, which was made through a group company IndusInd International Holdings (IIHL), came after the e-auctions ended, which according to Torrent was a “blatant and arbitrary violation” of the challenge process.

Torrent, in a communication to RCap administrator and CoC, said there were no provisions to accept a non-compliant submission of revised bids and was patently illegal. This also vitiates the whole process, it added.

Also Read: Reliance Capital lenders hike auction base price by nearly 25%

In the e-auction conducted under the challenge mechanism, Torrent had presented a resolution plan with an NPV of Rs 8,640 crore, while that by Hinduja’s was at Rs 8,110 crore.

Earlier in 2018, in a landmark decision, the NCLAT had ruled that the purpose of the bankruptcy process is to extract the maximum value from auctions of stressed assets, approving UltraTech Cement’s revised Rs 7,900-crore bid to acquire debt-laden Binani Cement. The dispute stemmed after Binani Cement’s CoC decided to consider an improved bid from UltraTech after Rajputana Properties’ (owned by Dalmia Bharat) Rs 6,930 crore bid was declared the highest bidder and filed with the Kolkata bench of the bankruptcy court for its approval.

Meanwhile, RCap’s CoC held its meeting as per earlier schedule on Tuesday and discussed the resolution plans submitted by the bidders. A comparison by the financial advisers, Deloitte and KPMG, stated that the upfront cash of Torrent was only Rs 3,750 crore, against IIHL’s Rs 9,000 crore upfront cash offer.

Torrent’s deferred payment of two-five years was without a corporate guarantee that was offered in the first round at zero interest. Torrent also wants the CoC to allow it to raise finances against RCap’s assets for deferred financing.

The lenders are also planning to file an extension application with NCLT to postpone the resolution process completion timeline to February 15 from the present January 31.