Madras High Court dismisses plea for establishment of Regional Benches of NCLAT

The Madras High Court today dismissed two petitions praying for the establishment of regional benches of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT)..The order was passed by a Bench of Justices S Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad..One of the petitions filed by a Chartered Accountant had sought the establishment of a Regional Bench of NCLAT at Chennai, in view of the pathetic situation being faced by litigants in accessing the NCLAT at New Delhi..The petition had pointed out that there is only one NCLAT Bench to deal with crores of appeals from NCLT orders across the country. As per Section 61 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, NCLT orders can only be challenged at the NCLAT. Further, Section 63 bars civil courts, including writ courts, from entertaining NCLT appeals..In the meanwhile, NCLT Benches are already burdened, with thousands of orders being passed every day. In this backdrop, the petitioner had contended that the NCLAT at Delhi alone is not equipped to fully hear and dispose of the mounting caseload..“I most respectfully submit that, the principal bench at Delhi alone handles the entire traffic and volume of appeals from all over India, in a day sitting from 10.30 to 1.30 pm hearing a maximum of 30 cases against almost 100 Crores in the list which means an average of less than six minutes per appeal is spent in hearing..Hence, it is impossible to get a Fair Hearing, after incurring lakhs of Rupees and there is a constant fear of imposition of huge penalties and adverse comments, if the matter is pleaded vigorously. Hence, the present process appears to be a live example of Justice Hurried is Justice Buried.”.Repeated representations made in this regard to the government had failed to yield any satisfactory response prompting the petitioner to approach the High court..The matter had initially come up before the fourth Bench headed by Justice M Sathyanarayanan. However, it was posted before the third Bench after being informed that another petition had been filed challenging relevant NCLT Rules as well. Both petitions were tagged together..It was argued before the third Bench that the need to establish regional benches assumes particular significance given that the NCLAT has wrested jurisdiction which previously lay with the High Courts of each state. However, during the hearing yesterday, the Court had orally observed that the grievances presented could perhaps be resolved by submitting representations to the Government..Chartered Accountant Venkata Sivakumar, appeared party in person. Senior counsel Arvindh Pandian and Satish Parasaran made arguments in the second petition, filed through Advocates K Gowtham Kumar, M Sricharan Rangarajan, Hariharan A and Varsha Chandrasekhar.