The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) of Chandigarh Bench held thatthe Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), the financial creditorcan’t take Possession of Corporate Debtor’s Assets Which Are not Subject Matter Of Litigation To Facilitate The Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process.
The present application has been filed by Resolution Professional seeking direction against respondent to pay car rental of Rs. 15,000/the – per month/ per car or part thereof up to the date of delivery of the cars to the applicant for using the car for personal purposes and further direction to respondent to hand over the custody of the cars belonging to corporate debtor to the Resolution Professional in view of provisions of Section 18 (f) read with Section 23(2) and read with Section 25(2)(a) of IBC, 2016.
It was stated that the respondents are the suspended directors of the Suspended Board of Directors of the corporate debtor and the cars, registered in the name of the corporate debtor, namely Toyota Innova having registration No. CH01AK0645 and SsangyongRexton having registration No. CH01BC3341 are in the possession of respondents and they are not returning the same despite repeated requests made in this regard.
The NCLT bench observed that under the provisions of the Code, the Resolution Professional is mandated to take possession and to preserve and protect the assets of the corporate debtor. In the present case, the two vehicles should have been in the custody of the Resolution Professional right after the initiation of the CIRP.
It was observed that only concerning those properties on which the corporate debtor has to “exercise rights in judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings”, the Resolution Professional cannot bring a claim before the NCLT which does not apply to the present case as there is no dispute over the ownership of the vehicles in question.
The NCLT bench consisting of Mr Harnam Singh Thakur, member (judicial) and Mr Subrata Kumar Dash, member (technical) directed the respondent to hand over the possession of the above-mentioned vehicles to the applicant-resolution professional within 15 days of the date of this order.
The application was allowed.Dr RajanshThukral and Mr Nitin Kant Setia appeared for the applicants and Mr ManujNagrath appeared for the respondent.
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