Moratorium in insolvency can restrain complaint-linked police investigation where it targets transactions under resolution.

The moratorium in a corporate insolvency resolution process does not automatically bar criminal proceedings, but police action may be restrained where the proposed investigation would necessarily onto transactions forming part of the insolvency subject matter. Here, the complaint and further police steps were tied to company transactions already within the resolution process, and the police had done only the steps permissible before the moratorium took effect. Further investigation could not continue until the resolution process ended, so the complaint-linked police action was impermissible and the writ petition was dismissed.

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Issues: Whether the existence of a moratorium in the corporate insolvency resolution process barred further police steps on a complaint relating to the company's transactions.

Analysis: The moratorium under the insolvency regime was recognised as not necessarily barring criminal proceedings in every case. However, the complaint and the proposed police action were found to be tied to transactions of the company that formed part of the corporate insolvency resolution process. Since any further investigation would necessarily travel into the very subject matter covered by that process, the police had already acted up to the stage permitted before the moratorium took effect and could not reasonably proceed further until the resolution process ended.

Conclusion: The writ petitioner's grievance that the police had failed to take sufficient steps was rejected.

Final Conclusion: The complaint-linked police action was held to be impermissible to continue during the subsistence of the insolvency process, and the writ petition was dismissed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where proposed police action would require investigation into transactions that are themselves the subject matter of a corporate insolvency resolution process, further steps may be restrained by the moratorium notwithstanding the general principle that criminal proceedings are not automatically barred.

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