New Delhi: Appeal to a hotelier in Supreme courtChallenging the order of withdrawal of corporate insolvency proceedings against the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) Oyo The hearing on Hotel and Home will now take place on October 21.

The matter was listed for hearing on Friday. Oyo’s lawyer called the appeal an attempt to blackmail the company because
It Was Coming With an IPO.

Mona Agarwal, who runs the Central Courtyard Resort in Siliguri, had challenged the NCLAT’s quashing of the insolvency case against Oyo in the Supreme Court. Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Association of India and other hoteliers had also filed applications to be involved in the matter.

The matter, which was being heard by a two-member bench of Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice JK Maheshwari, has now been adjourned to October 21.

Senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul, representing Agarwal, said the matter raises an important question as to whether a party can be allowed to compromise and withdraw the corporate insolvency resolution process without the consent of all the lenders. . The court said that it will have to hear the matter.

“As laid down in law, once the corporate insolvency resolution process has started and a petition has been accepted, it cannot be done without the consent of the lenders. Two judgments of this court state that after CIRP is initiated, each creditor must be heard and his consent can be obtained before withdrawal. In such a case I will have to file Form B as the lender. That’s all I have to do and I have claimed this,” Kaul said.

Senior advocate KV Viswanathan, appearing for Oyo, submitted that interference should not be allowed as they have no legal standing. “If Mr. Kaul’s client or intervenors have any claimants, they should issue a Section 8 notice, wait for the reply and satisfy the tribunal’s admission that they have a claim. These are attempts to blackmail because OYO is filing a red herring prospectus and is raising an IPO.All these applicants want to blackmail [Oyo] On the eve of its IPO,” he said.

The issue arose in 2019, when Gurugram-based hotelier Rakesh Yadav accused Oyo of defaulting on payments and breaching an agreement. In March 2021, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) accepted a petition for corporate insolvency proceedings against the company following a complaint by a hotelier. The NCLT appointed advocate Keyur Jagdishbhai Shah as interim resolution professional (IRP), and also asked other creditors of the company to present their claims.

While OYO appealed to the NCLAT against the NCLAT order, which stayed the constitution of a committee of creditors, the process of filing claims against the company continued.

In all, Oyo’s creditors, including Agarwal, filed claims worth around Rs 160 crore to the NCLT. The company termed the claims as arbitrary and said that many of them were disputed and without basis. It said a demand draft of Rs 16 lakh—the pending amount claimed by Yadav—was issued to him under protest. In July, the NCLAT allowed the withdrawal of insolvency proceedings against Oyo.

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OYO CEO for India and Southeast Asia Rohit Kapoor said at the time that the company had already settled the matter with the original claimant, but later those interfering with “vested interests” delayed the closure. Of.