Law Tribunal Reserves Order On Suraksha Group's Bid To Acquire Jaypee Infratech

The insolvency tribunal NCLT (National Company Law Tribunal) has reserved its order on Mumbai-based Suraksha group's bid to acquire Jaypee Infratech Ltd and complete around 20,000 flats for aggrieved homebuyers.

While a two-member special bench headed by NCLT President Justice Ramalingam Sudhakar had reserved the order late last month, a written order for this was uploaded recently.

After concluding the hearing on November 22, the NCLT bench directed the parties to submit their final written submissions.

In June last year, Mumbai-based Suraksha group received the approval of financial creditors and homebuyers to takeover the Jaypee Infratech Ltd (JIL), raising hopes for 20,000 homebuyers of getting possession of their dream flats in stalled projects, mainly in Noida and Greater Noida.

The Committee of Creditors (CoC) had approved the Suraksha Group bid for the debt-ridden JIL. However, it was pending for approval before the Delhi-based Principal bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).

Earlier this year, Suraksha ARC Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Aalok Dave had said that the company was making preparations internally to start construction work on all stalled projects soon after it gets the NCLT approval.

The corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) against JIL was started in August 2017. It was among the first list of 12 companies against whom, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had directed the banks to approach NCLT to get insolvency proceedings initiated.

Section 12 (1) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) mandates a CIRP to be completed within a time frame of 180 days from the date of admission of the application. However, under the request of the RP, the NCLT can extend the duration by another 90 days.

It should be mandatorily completed within 330 days, including any extension and the time taken in legal proceedings.

However, JIL was an exceptional case which faced several rounds of litigations and the time period kept on extending. Even after the finalisation of the bids, it was pending before NCLT for more than 17 months for approval.

In the fourth round of bidding process to find a buyer for JIL, Suraksha group had won the bid with 98.66 per cent votes and it had got 0.12 per cent more votes than NBCC.

As many as 12 banks and more than 20,000 homebuyers have voting rights in the CoC. Homebuyers and creditors have 56.63 per cent and 43.25 per cent voting rights, respectively. Fixed deposit holders have 0.13 per cent voting rights.

In its final resolution plan, Suraksha group offered to bankers over 2,500 acres of land and nearly Rs 1,300 crore by way of issuing non-convertible debentures. It has also proposed to complete all pending flats over the next four years.

JIL's lenders have submitted a claim of Rs 9,783 crore and CIRP was initiated over an application by an IDBI Bank-led consortium.

In the first round of insolvency proceeding, the Rs 7,350-crore bid of Lakshadweep, part of Suraksha group, was rejected by lenders.

The CoC had rejected the bids of Suraksha and NBCC in the second round held in May-June 2019.

In November 2019, the Supreme Court directed that the revised bids be invited only from NBCC and Suraksha.

Then, in December 2019, the CoC approved the resolution plan of NBCC with a 97.36 per cent vote in favour during the third round of the bidding process. In March 2020, NBCC had got approval from the NCLT to acquire JIL.

However, the order was challenged before the NCLAT and later in the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court on March 24, 2021, ordered for fresh round of bidding between the NBCC and the Suraksha group only.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)