The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), Chennai, has allowed an appeal filed by the committee of creditors of Vasan Health Care Pvt. Ltd seeking extension of time-frame under the insolvency resolution process.
The NCLAT said it was of the view that Vasan Health Care cannot be pushed into liquidation and noted that the Supreme Court had held that the liquidation was the last resort in the insolvency process. It noted that there had been exceptional circumstances, including nation-wide lockdown, for not completing the insolvency process within time.
The creditors had filed an appeal against the order by National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) which had rejected a plea seeking extension of time till November 30. The NCLT had granted time only till August 22 to finalise the accounts of Vasan Health Care and also issued directive for filing of liquidation application.
The appellate granted time till November 30, 2021 for completing the corporate insolvency process of the company and also excluded the time from Aug. 18, 2021 to November 25, 2021 spent in filing the appeals.
Max Vision Eye Hospital, one of the bidders for Vasan Health Care had filed an intervention application seeking preference claiming it had submitted its bid within the time-frame. Two other bidders ASG Hospital Private Ltd. and Dr. Agarwals Healthcare Limited had opposed it and wanted all bids to be considered.
The NCLAT said it was not going into the issue of who submitted the bid first and noted that the common stand taken by the bidders was to consider all the prospective bids by the committee of creditors on a par along with other applications.
In 2017, the NCLT had ordered commencement of insolvency proceedings against Vasan Health Care, in a petition filed by Alcon Laboratories (India) Pvt. Ltd, one of its suppliers. Financial creditors including Andhra Bank, Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank among others have a claim totalling ₹1,268 crore against the company.
