Supreme Court dismisses Byju Raveendran’s plea in BCCI settlement dispute

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal filed by Byju Raveendran against an April ruling of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) concerning the settlement between Byju’s parent entity and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), according to Bar & Bench. 

The order relates to the insolvency proceedings against Think and Learn, triggered by a petition filed by BCCI under Section 9 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) over an alleged debt of Rs 158.90 crore.

The NCLAT’s Chennai Bench had previously held that the settlement could not be treated as a pre-Committee of Creditors (pre-CoC) arrangement. It directed that the settlement proposal and BCCI’s request to withdraw the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) should be placed before the CoC, since the withdrawal plea was filed after the CoC had been constituted. Under Section 12A of the IBC, such a withdrawal requires CoC approval.

A Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and KV Viswanathan declined to interfere with the Appellate Tribunal’s conclusion and dismissed the appeal. A detailed order is awaited.

The insolvency matter began when the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitted BCCI’s Section 9 petition on July 16, 2024. Byju’s and BCCI later entered a settlement, which was initially accepted by NCLAT. However, on 23 October, the Supreme Court set aside that decision after a US-based creditor, Glas Trust, challenged the halting of the CIRP. The Court instructed BCCI to approach the NCLT afresh.

BCCI submitted Form FA, the withdrawal application, to the Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) on August 16, 2024 but asked that it be filed only after the Supreme Court concluded its hearing. The CoC was formed on 21 August, and the IRP eventually submitted the withdrawal request to the NCLT on 14 November.

Before the NCLAT, the central issue was whether the withdrawal application should be treated as having been filed before the CoC’s constitution, which would place it under Regulation 30A(1)(a) and remove the requirement of CoC approval. The appellants argued that the parties had settled their dispute before the CoC came into existence and that their right should not be affected by the timing of the IRP’s filing.

The Tribunal, however, held that the decisive factor is the date of filing before the Adjudicating Authority, not the date on which the IRP received Form FA. It also rejected the allegation that the IRP failed to comply with timelines under Regulation 30A(3) of the IBBI Regulations, 2016.

This NCLAT ruling led to the appeal now dismissed by the Supreme Court.