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IBC: COC has to follow IBC rules and not bound to be fair and equitable

In Pratap Technocrats (p) Ltd. & Ors vs Monitoring Committee Of Reliance Infratel Limited, the appellants alleged that the treatment of the COC towards operational creditors on the ground that it has not been fair and equitable. That the decision of the CoC must reflect that it has taken into account the need to: (i) Maximize the value of assets of the CD; and (ii) Adequately balance the interest of all stakeholders, including of operational creditors.

The Supreme Court observed that in K Sashidhar vs India Overseas Bank (2019) 12 SCC 150 (K Sashidhar) it has been emphasized that the Adjudicating Authority is circumscribed by Section 31 to scrutinizing the resolution plan as approved by the CoC under Section 30(4). Moreover, even within the scope of that enquiry, the grounds on which the Adjudicating Authority can reject the plan is with reference to the matters specified in sub-Section (2) of Section 30. Similarly, the Court notes that the jurisdiction of the Appellate Authority to entertain an appeal against an approved resolution plan is defined by sub-Section (3) of Section 61.

Committee of Creditors of Essar Steel India Limited vs Satish Kumar Gupta (2020) 8 SCC 531, clarify that once the Adjudicating Authority is satisfied that the CoC has applied its mind to the statutory requirements spelt out in sub-Section (2) of Section 30, it must then pass the resolution plan. The decision also emphasises that equitable treatment of creditors is equitable treatment only within the same class. In this context, the judgment contains an elaborate foundation on the basis of which it has held that financial creditors belong to a class distinct from operational creditors.

These decisions have laid down that the jurisdiction of the Adjudicating Authority and the Appellate Authority cannot extend into entering upon merits of a business decision made by a requisite majority of the CoC in its commercial wisdom. Nor is there a residual equity based jurisdiction in the Adjudicating Authority or the Appellate Authority to interfere in this decision, so long as it is otherwise in conformity with the provisions of the IBC and the Regulations under the enactment.

Once the requirements of the IBC have been fulfilled, the Adjudicating Authority and the Appellate Authority are duty bound to abide by the discipline of the statutory provisions. It needs no emphasis that neither the Adjudicating Authority nor the Appellate Authority have an unchartered jurisdiction in equity. The jurisdiction arises within and as a product of a statutory framework. 

Unlike some foreign courts which allow resolution/reorganization plans to be challenged on grounds of fairness and equity, under the Indian insolvency regime, it appears that a conscious choice has been made by the legislature to not confer any independent equity based jurisdiction on the Adjudicating Authority other than the statutory requirements laid down under sub-Section (2) of Section 30 of the IBC.

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