Section 8 insolvency demand notice must be duly authorised and in prescribed form; unauthorised lawyer notice fails.

An operational creditor's failure objection on proof of non-receipt was rejected because the record included an ICICI Bank confirmation showing no payment from the corporate debtor's account since the relevant date. However, the section 8 demand notice under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 was held invalid because it was issued by an advocate without board authorisation and was not in the prescribed form. The Tribunal applied the statutory scheme and governing appellate precedent to hold that a section 8 notice must be issued by the operational creditor or by a duly authorised person; without that precondition, the section 9 application was incomplete and not maintainable, so the insolvency petition was rejected.

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Issues: (i) Whether the operational creditor satisfied the statutory requirement of producing a certificate from a financial institution confirming non-receipt of payment of the unpaid operational debt. (ii) Whether the demand notice under section 8 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, issued by an advocate without board authorisation and not in the prescribed form, was valid so as to sustain the application under section 9.

Issue (i): Whether the operational creditor satisfied the statutory requirement of producing a certificate from a financial institution confirming non-receipt of payment of the unpaid operational debt.

Analysis: The record showed a confirmation from ICICI Bank stating that no amount had been received in the operational creditor's account from the corporate debtor's account since the relevant date. The asserted defect regarding absence of a financial institution certificate was therefore not made out on facts.

Conclusion: The objection failed.

Issue (ii): Whether the demand notice under section 8 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, issued by an advocate without board authorisation and not in the prescribed form, was valid so as to sustain the application under section 9.

Analysis: The statutory scheme required delivery of a demand notice in the prescribed form by the operational creditor or a person duly authorised to act on its behalf. Relying on the governing appellate precedent, the Tribunal held that an advocate, chartered accountant or company secretary, in the absence of board authorisation and a position in relation to the operational creditor, could not issue a valid section 8 notice. As the notice relied upon was not in the prescribed format and no board authority was produced, the application was treated as incomplete.

Conclusion: The notice was invalid and the application was not maintainable.

Final Conclusion: The insolvency petition was rejected because the statutory precondition of a valid demand notice was not met, and the application was therefore incomplete.

Ratio Decidendi: A section 8 demand notice under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 must be issued in the prescribed form by the operational creditor or by a person duly authorised to act on its behalf; a lawyer's notice without such authorisation does not satisfy the statutory precondition for admission of a section 9 application.

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