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Showing contexts for: Mobilox in Vijay Kumar Jain vs Standard Chartered Bank on 31 January, 2019Matching Fragments
5. As against this, Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, and Mr. Raunak Dhillon, appearing on behalf of the resolution professional, relied strongly on Section 30(3) of the Code and Regulation 39(2) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (Insolvency Resolution Process for Corporate Persons) Regulations, 2016 [“CIRP Regulations”] which made it clear that resolution plans were only to be given to the committee of creditors for its consideration. They further argued that the terms “committee” and “participant” are differently defined under the Regulations and that participants are expressly excluded by Regulation 39. They also argued, that if any of the Regulations go beyond the provisions of the Code, they must be struck down as ultra vires, as under Section 30(3) of the Code, the resolution professional is required to present resolution plans only to the committee of creditors. They relied upon the Notes on Clauses to Section 24 of the Code, which, according to them, made it clear that the reason for the participation of the erstwhile Board of Directors in meetings of the committee of creditors is so that they may give information to assess the financial position of the corporate debtor. They are not in the position, therefore, of other creditors, who may go into merits and demerits of resolution plans as such resolution plans affect creditors only and not such persons. They relied upon this Court’s judgment in Mobilox Innovations Private Limited v. Kirusa Software Private Limited, (2018) 1 SCC 353 [“Mobilox Innovations”], for the proposition that Notes on Clauses are important parliamentary material that may be relied upon to understand the object of the Section in question. They also relied strongly upon Regulation 7(2)(h) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (Insolvency Professionals) Regulations, 2016, read with the First Schedule thereto, which made it clear that confidential information can only be shared with the consent of the relevant parties. Further, the confidential information contained in proposed resolution plans can only be shared with members of the committee of creditors after receiving an undertaking from them under the Regulations. They further argued that persons such as the appellant are not persons aggrieved and since no prejudice is caused to them, do not have a right to file any application under Section 60(5) of the Code or appeals to the Appellate Tribunal from orders of the Adjudicating Authority under Section 61.
11. This Court in Mobilox Innovations (supra) stated:
“27. The notes on clauses annexed to the Bill are extremely important and read as follows……” xxx xxx xxx “38. It is, thus, clear that so far as an operational creditor is concerned, a demand notice of an unpaid operational debt or copy of an invoice demanding payment of the amount involved must be delivered in the prescribed form. The corporate debtor is then given a period of 10 days from the receipt of the demand notice or copy of the invoice to bring to the notice of the operational creditor the existence of a dispute, if any. We have also seen the notes on clauses annexed to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Bill of 2015, in which “the existence of a dispute” alone is mentioned. Even otherwise, the word “and” occurring in Section 8(2)(a) must be read as “or” keeping in mind the legislative intent and the fact that an anomalous situation would arise if it is not read as “or”……”