Breaking: SC dismisses Dalmia Bharat challenge to NCLAT UltraTech order

The Supreme Court today dismissed a petition filed by Dalmia Bharat’s Rajputana Properties challenging an order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) by which Ultratech Cement’s resolution plan for Binani Cement was upheld..The Bench of Justices Rohinton Nariman and Navin Sinha dismissed the plea today..The matter was mentioned last week by advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for Dalmia Bharat’s Rajputana Properties. Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi agreed to list the matter for today. Today, Senior Advocates Gopal Subramanium and Neeraj Kishan Kaul (briefed by Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas) appeared for Dalmia Bharat while Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi and Advocate Mahesh Agarwal appeared for Ultratech..Dalmia Bharat argued that Ultratech could not revise the offer, but after hearing Ultratech Supreme Court decided to dismiss the appeal. Ultratech argued that declaration of Rajputana Properties as highest bidder was flawed and was under challenge. Ultratech had revised the offer before the final meeting of March 14, which was well within the time..A two-member bench of the NCLAT headed by Chairperson Justice SJ Mukhopadhaya on November 14 rejected the resolution plan submitted by Dalmia Bharat’s Rajputana Properties, calling it “discriminatory” and “unbalanced”..The NCLAT Bench observed that the plan submitted by Rajputana discriminated between “equally situated” financial creditors and did not balance other stakeholders such as the operational creditors of Binani Cement. Therefore, its resolution plan was rightly rejected, it said..The Bench ordered that the approval of Ultratech’s resolution plan by the Adjudicating Authority cannot be held to be illegal..The NCLAT also remitted the records of the proceedings back to the NCLT Kolkata Bench for establishing a monitoring committee for the process.