The NCLAT Delhi held that Any letter by the Corporate Debtor mentioning dues of the loan amount has to be treated as an acknowledgement of the outstanding dues.
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, New Delhi bench comprising Justice Ashok Bhushan, Chairperson and Barun Mitra, Technical Member was hearing an Appeal and held that Any letter by the Corporate Debtor mentioning dues of the loan amount has to be read as an acknowledgement for all the outstanding dues of different banks and the limitation can be counted from the date of the acknowledgement letter.
In the present case, the Appeal was filed against the order passed by the AA, wherein the AA has admitted Section 7 Application of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 filed by the Financial Creditor State Bank of India.
Learned counsel for the Appellant challenging the order and raised two submissions. It is submitted that the Adjudicating Authority committed an error in relying on the date of default mentioned in the notice under Section 13(2) of the SARFAESI Act, 2002 whereas it was not the correct date of default. It was further submitted that the acknowledgement given by the Appellant was only to the State Bank of India. The loans for which the Application has been filed were initially for three banks which subsequently got merged with the State Bank of India.
The Appellate Tribunal noted that the learned counsel for the Appellant himself has filed the additional documents including a Letter dated 26th May 2016 which was a letter written by the Appellant in which letter outstanding dues of the banks have been clearly mentioned including State Bank of India, State Bank of Patiala and State Bank of Bikaner at Jaipur which letter has also been treated as an acknowledgement by the Adjudicating Authority. The State Bank of India filed the Application under Section 7 on 3rd April 2019. The letter dated 26th May 2016 has to be read as an acknowledgement of all the outstanding dues of different banks. Thus, the Application was well within three years from the acknowledged date of 26th May 2016.
The Appeal was dismissed.
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