Supreme Court: Staff shortage, infrastructure issues affecting NCLT operations must be addressed

A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and KV Viswanathan said the issues before the court needed to be “resolved on a war footing, otherwise the purpose and objectives of enacting the IBC would be defeated”. NCLTs play an important role in the economy as they try to sustain and keep companies afloat that have “failed due to various factors”, but the situation prevailing in these tribunals is grim and discouraging, the report said.In its order, the court noted that most of the staff of the tribunal, including the post of Registrar, are appointed on an ad hoc basis and the entire NCLT staff in Mumbai had gone on strike over non-payment of wages on time.The SC said, “As per the report forwarded by the NCLT Registrar, Chief Justice, 363 applications (resolution proposals) are pending for approval”.“The delay in seeking explanations ranged from 48 to 738 days. In some cases, the delay was up to four years. The reasons assigned were generally lack of adequate infrastructure and lack of infrastructure leading to half-day meeting of the bench, and more specifically, due to the interchange of portfolios and the large number of objections raised by various stakeholders to the resolution plan,” it said.The quorum of all NCLT judges is 63 members, including a Chairman and 31 judicial members and as many technical members. Currently, only 28 judicial members and 26 technical members serve on the bench.