The newly appointed board of debt-ridden IL&FS has urgently sought appellate tribunal NCLAT’s intervention to restrain 11 public sector lenders from initiating proceedings to declare group corporations as “wilful defaulters”.
In its petition, IL&FS stated it was aggrieved by the “blatant violation and disregard” of earlier NCLAT orders by the banks. IL&FS additionally charged banks of taking procedural motion beneath the garb of the RBI pointers, and “harassing the directors” of IL&FS firms.
The banks have been “issuing show cause notices, calling for a personal hearing before the wilful defaulter identification committee, threatening initiation of criminal proceedings, including initiating proceedings as well as and for declaring IL&FS companies and their current directors as wilful defaulters, as well as getting issued look out circulars,” it submitted.
‘Coercive actions’
“All such coercive actions/steps are attempts by the respondent banks to pressurise the IL&FS companies to directly or indirectly meet their debt demands, without having regard to the fact that the resolution/satisfaction of debts of all the creditors of the IL&FS companies is subjudice before this tribunal,” it submitted.
IL&FS has requested that the banks be restrained from pursuing proceedings in opposition to “other IL&FS companies and/or their directors and/or officers appointed after October 2018 by the IL&FS new board”. It has additionally made the RBI a celebration, and requested NCLAT to “pass an order directing Respondent No. 12 (RBI) to direct Respondent No. 1 to 11 (banks) restraining them from taking any coercive action against the applicants and other IL&FS companies.” It has additionally requested the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) to direct banks to “not take any coercive action against the applicant and other IL&FS companies and/or their directors and/or officers” through the pendency of the listening to and last disposal of the current utility.
The banks are: Central Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Indian Bank, Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, State Bank of India, Bank of India, Jammu & Kashmir Bank, IDBI Bank and Union Bank of India. According to IL&FS, the banks have been collaborating within the IL&FS decision course of to get their money owed addressed and these parallel coercive steps weren’t solely “squarely in the teeth” of the orders handed by NCLAT, however have been the probably results of both a selective studying of such orders, or an “uncoordinated mechanical attempt” at purportedly complying with relevant RBI pointers.
IL&FS’s new board had already referred the actions of the erstwhile administration for investigation.
