2022 (4) TMI 14

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....ppellant and Shri P. Ramesh Babu, learned counsel for the Respondent. This Appeal has been filed against the order passed by the Adjudicating Authority (National Company Law Tribunal), New Delhi Bench, Court No. IV dated 28.10.2021 by which the Resolution Plan has been approved. The Appellant, an Operational Creditor aggrieved by the order has come up in this Appeal. 2. Shri Srijan Sinha, learned counsel for the Appellant submits that there is great disparity between the amount offered to the Operational Creditors as compared to payment of dues offered to the Financial Creditors. It is submitted that the Financial Creditors have been offered 25.74% whereas Operational Creditors have been offered only 1.24%, which is clear inequality and ....

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....e equality between class of Operational Creditors and class of Financial Creditors. In para 88 and 89 of the Judgment following principles have been laid down. "88. By reading paragraph 77 de hors the earlier paragraphs, the Appellate Tribunal has fallen into grave error. Paragraph 76 clearly refers to the UNCITRAL Legislative Guide which makes it clear beyond any doubt that equitable treatment is only of similarly situated creditors. This being so, the observation in paragraph 77 cannot be read to mean that financial and operational creditors must be paid the same amounts in any resolution plan before it can pass muster. On the contrary, paragraph 77 itself makes it clear that there is a difference in payment of the debts of finan....

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....of Creditors with the discretion of accepting resolution plans only with financial creditors, operational creditors having no vote, the Code itself differentiates between the two types of creditors for the reasons given above. Further, as has been reflected in Swiss Ribbons (supra), most financial creditors are secured creditors, whose security interests must be protected in order that they do not go ahead and realise their security in legal proceedings, but instead are incentivised to act within the framework of the Code as persons who will resolve stressed assets and bring a corporate debtor back to its feet. Shri Sibal's argument that the expression "secured creditor" does not find mention in Chapter II of the Code, which deals with ....