DHFL has argued that since it was acquired by Piramal Capital and Housing Finance Ltd, it should be relieved of all earlier liabilities.
The company has challenged the August 20 order of a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court, which had granted partial relief by acquitting the Interim Monitoring Committee, but rejected DHFL’s plea to discharge it from the case.
DHFL said that once a company is admitted under the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) under section 32(a) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), it gets rid of the earlier liabilities and the new owner gets a clean company.
“Section 32(a) of the IBC – which came into force on 28th December, 2019 – gives a mandatory direction to a corporate debtor (DHFL) to discharge him from all liabilities of all criminal offenses committed before the commencement of CIRP, The company said in its petition.
ET has seen the copy of the petition.
The company has further argued that the date of approval of the resolution plan should result in a change in the management and control of the corporate debtor.
The special CBI court had discharged the administrator and the monitoring committee from the case and said that the company would be tried through accused no. 2 (Kapil Wadhawan) and accused no. 3 (Dhiraj Wadhawan), who has been held responsible for the operation of DHFL at the time of commission of the alleged offences.
After hearing the preliminary arguments of the company and the CBI, Justice SK Shinde adjourned the matter for further hearing on September 27.
The petition argued, “The (CBI Court) order serves no purpose other than to delay and/or derail the implementation of the resolution plan, which seeks to repay the creditors of the petitioner (DHFL), mostly public There are sectoral and nationalized banks.” ahead.
When contacted, senior advocate Ravi Kadam, representing DHFL in the matter, confirmed the development.
In July, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) allowed Piramal Capital and Housing Finance to take over DHFL.
Piramal has offered to pay Rs 35,250 crore to the creditors of DHFL.
At present, out of its debt of around Rs 87,000 crore, the company owes about Rs 40,000 crore to banks.