M/s. Sur-Vir Finance Ltd. vs Mr. Yogesh Gupta, Pdb Ventures Pvt. Ltd., Mr. Vasu Dev Bissa G, Mr. Gopi S, Mr. G Rahul

(Hybrid Mode)

Oral Judgment: Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma, Member (Judicial):-

The Appellant/Applicant before this Tribunal agitates his grievance, being aggrieved against the impugned order dated 04.02.2026, as it has been passed in IA No.181/2025, that was preferred in CP(IB) No.20/BB/2023. By virtue of the said IA that was preferred before the Learned Tribunal, the Appellant had agitated his grievances as against the rejection of his claim by the RP/Respondent No.1 on 25.01.2025, and had prayed for setting aside of the order of liquidator dated 25.01.2025, and issue of direction to the RP to admit his claim and to include him in the CoC. Besides, he had also prayed for that the Resolution Professional may be replaced with another insolvency professional, so as to carry out the proceedings in future. When this IA came up for consideration before the Learned Tribunal, the Learned Tribunal has proceeded to partially allow the same with the following directions: -

Further, the Learned Counsel for the Appellant had argued that the directions given by the Learned Tribunal for supplying with the bank account statement to the Resolution Professional within two weeks from the uploading of the order for re-determination of the claim of the Applicant is bad in the eyes of law, for the reason being that according to the Appellant’s case, the relevant bank statements and other documents including account details as per Regulation 7 of IBBI (Insolvency Resolution Process for Corporate Persons), Regulations, 2016, have already been supplied by him to the Resolution Professional on 21.07.2025 and no further direction ought not to have been given to furnish the bank statements as directed by the order.

Lastly, the Learned Counsel for the Appellant has questioned the status of the Resolution Professional, as to whether at all he could continue as a Resolution Professional or not, particularly in the context of para 7(c), which he has prayed for that in the light of the observation made in para 22 of the Judgment rendered by the Learned Tribunal in CP(IB) No.20/BB/2023, M/s. PDB Venture Pvt. Ltd. Vs M/s. Arisu Retail Pvt. Ltd. In the aforesaid Company Appeal, the question arose as to whether at all the AFA of the IRP, which was said to have been expired, whether it has been renewed, because in the absence of renewal AFA he cannot function as Resolution Professional. So far as the denial of the said relief is concerned, we affirmed the same for the reason being that the Learned Counsel for the Respondent had made a statement at bar that the AFA of the Resolution Professional had expired on 31.12.2025, and that the same has been renewed at a later date. Learned Counsel for the Appellant has argued that the said AFA has not yet been renewed and no valid AFA is existing as on date as per the records retrieved from the site of IBBI and therefore he cannot continue to function as RP. But at this stage, we are not venturing into the issue, and that aspect will be exclusively considered by the Learned Tribunal at the relevant stage, when the proceedings are taken up before it.

The observation, which has been made by the Learned Tribunal qua the aspect of “related party”, the said observation itself will not preclude the Resolution Professional from considering the claim raised by the Appellant on merits, as that is to be independently considered by Resolution Professional. Further, only upon the determination of the claim, the aspect of ‘related party’ will have to be decided first by the RP and then on judicial side by the Learned Adjudicating Authority if need be. Therefore, this question is not required to be ventured into and at this stage, when the Resolution Professional is expected to consider the claim after the order of remand. As the Resolution Professional only performs the executive duties of collating and determining the claim. Hence, the observation made by the Learned Tribunal that, the applicant does not appear to be naive and distanced from the Corporate Debtor and the observation made of a similar nature in para 6(viii) pertaining to the parties' status under Section 5(24) of the Code, will stand quashed and the concerned issues may be independently considered by the Learned Adjudicating Authority after the determination of claim independently by the Resolution Professional based upon the document, which has already been supplied by the Appellant as on 21.07.2025.

As far as the issue of direction in para 7(c) of the impugned order is concerned, we are of the view that it was beyond scope of the controversy that was agitated by filing IA No.181/2025, which was exclusively confined to the issue of the rejection of the claim by the order of RP dated 25.01.2025 and therefore Learned Tribunal, while setting aside the rejection of the claim by the RP and remitting the matter back the RP to re-determine the claim, ought to have desisted itself from making any observation qua the necessity of initiation of the avoidance proceedings under Sections 43, 45, 50 & 66 of the Code, because that would amount to be travelling beyond the subject, which was being agitated by the Appellant before the Learned Tribunal. In that eventuality, the observation made in para 7(c) by the Learned Tribunal, in the impugned order, would stand quashed. Having said so, we disposed of the Company Appeal with the following observations: -

Subject to the above, the Comp App (AT) (CH) (Ins) No.230/2026 is partly stands disposed of. The time as granted by the Learned Tribunal for the determination of the claim of two weeks will be extended, to be determined within two weeks, now from the date of the uploading of this order.