Moneycontrol PRO
Check Credit Score
Check Credit Score
HomeNewsBusiness

Parliament passes Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code Amendment Bill

It is a learning experience," the Minister said while winding up a debate on the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code Amendment Bill, which was later approved by the Rajya Sabha through a voice vote.

January 02, 2018 / 07:34 PM IST

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said the government has entered into an unchartered territory as far as bankruptcy and insolvency Code is concerned and would continue to modify the law dealing with the issue. "Insolvency and bankruptcy is an area in which it is only in the recent years that we have chartered into.

It is a learning experience," the Minister said while winding up a debate on the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code Amendment Bill, which was later approved by the Rajya Sabha through a voice vote.

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Ordinance, 2017 Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha last week. The government, Jaitley said, has been encountering situations which were not anticipated earlier and assured the House that it would continue to take corrective action.

The Bill seeks to replace an ordinance which was promulgated in November to prevent unscrupulous persons from misusing or vitiating the provisions of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

The ineligible persons or entities will include undischarged insolvent, wilful defaulter and those whose accounts have been classified as non-performing assets.

These persons, however, can become "eligible to submit a resolution plan" if they clear all the overdue amounts with interest and other charges relating to their NPA accounts. Those defaulters who had participated in the insolvency proceedings before November 23 can also bid for stressed assets provided they clear their dues in a month.

Responding to the concerns of the members, he said the whole effort was to make banking sector robust and detach it from politics. "You need a strong banking system ...You need banks which are able to lend money to large industries, to infrastructure projects, to small industry, for educational loans. ...It is all part of the economy that you need a robust banking system," he said.

Jaitley said during the insolvency process, banks and unsecured creditors will have to take some haircut and if the same management comes back, nothing would change.

The objective of the bill is to allow creditors to move to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in case of insolvency. "We have now started that resolution process ...There are several hundreds of them and almost more than 500 have been disposed of. Creditors are using these procedures," the Minister said.

He said large pending cases are broadly in two categories - one with large assets, functional plants and factories and the other are either trading companies or EPC companies with little assets.

Jaitley said as far as asset-owning companies are concerned,

fetching the best prices is the target and any bid which is not viable can be rejected. It is for creditors to decide how much haircuts they want, he said. Earlier, the Opposition had asked the government to identify willful defaulters of bank loans.

Former Finance Minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram while initiating the debate on the bill supported it but pointed to various clauses which according to him would deter Indian companies from participating in the process.

"I think one should have been a little more rigorous in the exclusion clauses. One should have kept exclusion to a very, very small number which definitely must be excluded. But I am afraid by making the clauses so broad, so over-inclusive, practically everybody in the financial world is likely to be excluded," Chidambaram said.

He said a major concern was lack of a bidder for a company as a 'going concern'. BJP's Bhupender Yadav while supporting the bill said over 500 applications for insolvency have been filed with the NCLT.

Naresh Aggarwal (SP) asked the government to throw light on insolvency professional and also asked if the bill would help in checking the NPAs of banks. A Navaneethakrishnan of AIADMK supported the bill, saying agri loans and educational loans should be excluded from the purview of NPAs. Sukhendu Shekhar Roy (TMC) said there was a need to identify willful defaulters of bad loans.

Attacking the government for being non-serious on the recovery of non-performing assets (NPAs) that are estimated to have touched Rs 10 lakh crore, D Raja (CPI) sought to know "why the government is afraid of corporate companies" and not publishing the names of defaulters. Jairam Ramesh (Cong) raised concern about lenders taking "big haircuts" or discounts on claim value of NPAs and asked if this is going to be a "norm".

PTI
first published: Jan 2, 2018 06:57 pm

Discover the latest business news, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!

Advisory Alert: It has come to our attention that certain individuals are representing themselves as affiliates of Moneycontrol and soliciting funds on the false promise of assured returns on their investments. We wish to reiterate that Moneycontrol does not solicit funds from investors and neither does it promise any assured returns. In case you are approached by anyone making such claims, please write to us at grievanceofficer@nw18.com or call on 02268882347