NCLAT Stays Insolvency Proceedings Against RHC Holdings Pvt. Ltd.

RHC Holdings Pvt. Ltd. (RHC) is the company through which Singh Brothers namely Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh sold Ranbaxy India to Daiichi Sankyo (Daiichi).

Daiichi Sankyo filed an appeal before the NCLAT against the Order dated 13.05.2022 wherein NCLT admitted the petition filed by Religare Comtrade Ltd. (Religare) under Section 7 of the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC/Code).

Contentions Of Daiichi Sankyo

It was contended on behalf of Daiichi that;

• Daiichi has an arbitration award in its favor wherein RHC along with other judgement debtors owed money to Daiichi Sankyo.
• Earlier Religare filed 23 petitions against various related entities of RHC under Section 7 of IBC to defeat the claim of Daiichi.
• All these 23 proceedings were stayed by Supreme Court vide its order dated 05.04.2019 in SLP 2447/2019 which is continuing till date.
• It the present Section 7 application filed in March, 2022 was another attempt to bail out RHC from liabilities towards Daiichi and furthermore, RHC neither appeared nor contested the Section 7 Petition before NCLT.
• Stay order dated 05.04.2019 was neither disclosed in Section 7 Petition nor mentioned in admission order dated 13.05.2022.

Contentions Of Religare

It was contended on behalf of Religare that;

• Religare has given a loan of INR 99 Crores to RHC and it has no other option except to file Section 7 petition to save limitation.
• Daiichi itself filed a Section 7 petition against RHC for recovery of its dues.
• Daiichi can approach Supreme Court against the admission order as the proceedings are pending before Supreme Court.

Analysis By NCLAT

NCLAT noted that the Supreme Court vide its order dated 05.04.2019 stayed 23 petitions filed by Religare and in furtherance of Supreme Court order NCLT itself stayed all proceedings on 11.04.2019.

It was further observed by the Bench perusal of the admission order does not indicate that the stay order dated 05.04.2019 was brought to the knowledge of NCLT.

Considering the above, NCLAT issued notice and stayed the admission order dated 13.05.2022.

Case Title: Daiichi Sankyo Ltd. Vs. Religare Comtrade Ltd. & Ors

Click Here To Read/Download Order