Mumbai: The Ruchi Soya lenders on Tuesday said that the appellate tribunal NCLAT's order on Essar Steel-ArcelorMittal, will not be applicable in this matter as it is already under trial.
The counsel for the committee of creditors (CoC) of Ruchi Soya said the judgment will not apply to any matter, which are under trial or going through the insolvency process, hence is also not applicable in the Ruchi Soya matter.
The Mumbai bankruptcy tribunal NCLT on July 9, had directed all stakeholders, including the resolution professional and the lenders, of Ruchi Soya to find out whether the appellate tribunal NCLAT's last week's order on Essar Steel- ArcelorMittal matter would have any impact on their case.
An NCLT bench of VP Singh and Ravikumar Duraisamy wanted to know what will be the impact of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) order passed last week on Arcelor Mittal matter, which ordered almost equal treatment of operational and financial creditors, leading to a much higher payout to operational creditors, and forcing much higher haircut on banks.
The tribunal observed that the NCLAT order has changed the entire outcome for all stakeholders and is like a formula with clear-cut directions on the distribution of the proceeds should be carried out.
Reserving an order on Ruchi Soya, the tribunal said, the resolution plan is required to be further discussed. The Supreme Court on Monday had put on hold the sale of Essar Steel is to ArcelorMittal as it agreed to hear the appeal filed by financial lenders against the NCLAT order, saying it would like to settle the issue "once and for all".
Further discussing the issue, the CoC said that after the resolution applicant gave a plan, he cannot alter the distribution pattern to their advantage and the whole case will only arise when someone raises objection.
However, in this case neither the CoC has changed anything nor the operational creditors have been left out, so the NCLAT's order does not apply, he added.
Meanwhile, the counsel of Patanjali said that it stands by its resolution plan. The NCLAT on July 4, gave operational creditors equal status as lenders in the distribution of the ArcelorMittal's Rs 42,000 crore bid to take over Essar Steel.
In December 2017, NCLT had referred Ruchi Soya for insolvency on applications moved by Standard Chartered Bank and DBS Bank and appointed Shailendra Ajmera as the RP.
Patanjali after losing the bid later increased its bid value by around Rs 140 crore to Rs 4,350 crore along with a capital infusion of Rs 1,700 crore.
Ruchi Soya owes over Rs 9,345 crore to financial creditors led by State Bank, which has an exposure of Rs 1,800 crore, followed by Central Bank at Rs 816 crore, PNB at Rs 743 crore and StanChart at Rs 608 crore.
