2019 (1) TMI 576
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....company dated 19. 11. 2013 Annexure-14 (C) authorising Mr. Riten Choudhury, Managing Director of the petitioner company to represent the petitioner company in legal matters and proceedings before the Court and other Government authorities. Mr. Sanjay Dayal, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Mr. Anand Sen, Director of the company were authorisedto sign the power of attorney for and on behalf of the Board of Directors of the Company under the Common Seal of the Company. 2. When the matter was listed on 17. 09. 2018, it was noticed that there was no specific decision by the company for filing of a petition under the provisions of the Code. Notice of the defect was given to the petitioner and the learned counsel for the petitioner accepted the notice of defect. Consequently a fresh resolution was filed vide diary No. 3667, dated 26. 09. 2018, which is to the effect that Riten Choudhury, Managing Director was authorised to represent the company before the National Company Law Tribunal and other Courts of competent jurisdiction in respect of the matters relating to the insolvency proceedings under the Code and Rules made thereunder and to do all the necessary acts in the progress....
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....hange dated 05. 05. 2017 for Rs.29,97,974. 74 including interest of 30 days was raised. Copy of the Commercial Invoice and Bill of Exchange are at Annexure 6 and 7 respectively. 8. It is further stated that the invoices were sent to the corporate debtor for the material supplied, which was acknowledged by the corporate debtor without raising any objection. The corporate debtor never complained of the quality or quantity of the material supplied. In this regard, the petitioner-operational creditor has also relied upon the Tax Invoices bearing No. 375, 452 and 459, which are at Annexure 8 to 8B and 9 respectively. Thereafter there was some discrepancy pointed out by the banker of the respondent-corporate debtor and when the operational creditor visited the Bank, it was informed that the Bills of Exchange were submitted by the corporate debtor after expiry of the validity period. 9. Thereafter the petitioner received a letter dated 01. 09. 2017 through e-mail from the respondent requesting the petitioner to co-operate with the corporate debtor till 15. 09. 2017 to resolve the issue with the corporate debtor's bank. Copy of the said email is at Annexure 10. Subsequent to that mor....
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....echnical issue, which is not pressed. 15. In reply, the respondent-corporate debtor disputed the liability to pay the amount as demanded in the notice. It is further stated that a dispute was already existing between the parties, which has been highlighted in the reply to the statutory demand notice. It is otherwise admitted that the material was supplied by the operational creditor who was supposed to get the Letter of Credit encashed from the Banker of the corporate debtor by fulfilling the required formalities, but the operational creditor failed to do so. 16. It is also stated that the Letter of Credit was not encashed and the same has come to the rescue of the respondent, as the material valuing Rs. 25 lacs was rejected due to its poor quality and also it did not match with the specifications mentioned in the purchase order. The remaining payment is said to have been made out of the Invoices raised. 17. Apart from this, on merits it is also stated that the statutory demand notice was not issued by the authorised representative of the petitioner. 18. We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and carefully perused the record. 19. We first deal with the iss....
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....is otherwise complete, the adjudicating authority must reject the application if notice of dispute has been received by the operational creditor or there is a record of dispute in the information utility. It is clear that such notice must bring to the notice of the operational creditor the "existence" of a dispute or the fact that a suit or arbitration proceeding relating to a dispute is pending between the parties. Therefore, all that the adjudicating authority is to see at this stage is whether there is a plausible contention which requires further investigation and that the "dispute" is not a patently feeble legal argument or an assertion of fact unsupported by evidence. It is important to separate the grain from the chaff and to reject a spurious defence which is mere bluster. However, in doing so, the Court does not need to be satisfied that the defence is likely to succeed. The Court does not at this stage examine the merits of the dispute except to the extent indicated above. So long as a dispute truly exists in fact and is not spurious, hypothetical or illusory, the adjudicating authority has to reject the application." 22. In view of the above, we find that there was no....


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