PIL seeking regional bench of NCLAT in TN dismissed

The order was passed by a division bench comprising Justice S Manikumar and Justice Subramonium Prasad on the basis that the grievance raised could be resolved by submitting representations to the Government and that the court need not intervene.

V Venkata Siva Kumar, a Chartered Accountant, who moved the public interest litigation as party-in-person contended that there exists a lone NCLAT bench at New Delhi to deal with thousands of appeals from National company Law Tribunals (NCLT) across the Country.

This had resulted in the principal bench at Delhi handling the entire traffic and volume of appeals from all over India, so much so that in a day’s sitting from 10.30 am to 1.30 pm even hearing a mere 30 cases out of the 100 listed meant that each appeal is offered an average of less than six minutes.

Hence, it is impossible to get a fair hearing, after incurring lakhs of Rupees and there is a constant fear of imposition of huge penalties and adverse comments, if the matter is pleaded vigorously, the petitioner said.

Initially, the matter had come up before the division bench comprising Justice M Sathyanarayanan andJustice P Rajamaickam. But it was referred to the third bench wherein a related matter challenging NCLT rules were pending and hence were tagged together.

Senior Counsel Arvindh Pandiian and Satish Parasaran made arguments in the second petition which was also dismissed.