Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (Ksure) Vs Amrit Polychem Pvt. Ltd (NCLAT Delhi)
NCLAT Delhi held that rejection of application under section 9 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code justifiable because of pre-existing dispute between the parties. Accordingly, appeal dismissed as being devoid of merits.
Facts- The present appeal filed under Section 61(1) of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016 by the Appellant arises out of the Order dated 02.08.2023 passed by the Adjudicating Authority (National Company Law Tribunal, Mumbai Bench-IV). By the impugned order, the Adjudicating Authority has dismissed Section 9 application filed by the Appellant-Korea Trade Insurance Corporation. Aggrieved by the impugned order, the present appeal has been preferred by the Appellant.
Conclusion- Once plausibility of a pre-existing dispute is noticed and the dispute is not found to be prima facie spurious or hypothetical, the Adjudicating Authority is not required to enter into final adjudication but to reject the Section 9 application. Present is a case where pre-existing dispute is writ large and that being so, Section 9 application deserved to be rejected as has been rightly done by the Adjudicating Authority.
Held that we are satisfied with the findings of the Adjudicating Authority dismissing the present Section 9 application on grounds of preexisting dispute, we do not find it necessary or relevant to go into the other issues raised by the Respondent viz that the Section 9 application was barred by limitation or that the Appellant did not qualify to be an Operational Creditor since the LoA was an invalid and unregistered document which only provided right of subrogation and therefore the debt did not become legally assigned to the Appellant in terms of Section5(20) of the IBC.
