Mumbai: The Nationwide Firm Regulation Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has dismissed an attraction filed by the Brihanmumbai Electrical Provide and Transport Endeavor (BEST) in opposition to Ashok Kumar Golecha, the Liquidator of Spark Inexperienced Power (Satara) Ltd., upholding the order handed by the Nationwide Firm Regulation Tribunal (NCLT), Mumbai Bench, which handled BEST as an unsecured creditor and restricted its admitted declare to Rs 30 crore as a substitute of the Rs 156.23 crore claimed by BEST.
The Appellate Tribunal, in its verdict, held: “The Liquidator (appointed within the case) didn’t obtain any proof concerning the creation of a safety—neither from an info utility, nor by means of a Certificates of Registration of Cost issued by the ROC, nor by way of registration with the Central Registry of Securitisation Asset Reconstruction and Safety Curiosity of India. Even when the requirement of registering the cost is side-stepped for the aim of figuring out the Appellant’s standing as a secured monetary creditor, the necessity to possess documentation evidencing the creation of such a cost can’t be waived. …Within the absence of a cost doc, the creditor couldn’t have been handled as a secured monetary creditor of the company debtor. It’s not for the Liquidator to look at who was at fault for not creating the safety cost. All that the Liquidator was required to find out was whether or not the cost had been created,” the Tribunal acknowledged in its order
The Tribunal additional maintained that the BEST’s argument concerning a “floating cost,” calling it a “unilateral creation” with none contractual basis. “Provided that there’s a cost doc can a safety curiosity be created,” the order famous, affirming the Liquidator’s choice to deal with BEST as an unsecured creditor.
The attraction arose from an October 2024 order handed by the NCLT. BEST had claimed Rs 156.23 crore, together with Rs 126.23 crore as curiosity, classifying itself as a secured monetary creditor of the company debtor, Spark Inexperienced Power. The Liquidator, nonetheless, admitted solely Rs 30 crore as principal and rejected the declare to curiosity and secured standing.
BEST argued that its funding in Spark Inexperienced Power was made below an Funding Settlement (IA) and an Power Buy Settlement (EPA), which, though labeled “interest-free,” supplied for compensation within the type of energy reductions within the occasion of undertaking delays. BEST contended that this low cost successfully represented the time worth of cash and that Spark had promised to create a second cost over its property—thus making BEST a secured creditor.
Nevertheless, the NCLAT Bench, comprising Chairperson Justice Ashok Bhushan and Technical Members Barun Mitra and Arun Baroka, discovered no benefit in these arguments. The Tribunal noticed that neither the IA nor the EPA expressly supplied for curiosity. It additionally emphasised that no cost had been created or registered in accordance with Part 77 of the Firms Act, 2013, nor had any supporting documentation been produced to substantiate the existence of a sound safety curiosity.
“We discover no good cause to intrude with the impugned order,” the Appellate Tribunal concluded whereas dismissing BEST’s attraction.
