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Judgment
(Hybrid Mode)
Heard counsel for the appellant and Ld. Counsel for the respondent.
This appeal has been filed against the order dated 06.11.2025 passed by National Company Law Tribunal, Ahmedabad Bench, Court-II in IA No.68 of 2025 in Company Petition (IB) 164 (AHM) 2023. IA was filed by the appellant seeking a direction to accept the entire claim of the applicant for provident fund dues prayer made in the application have been noticed by the Adjudicating Authority in para-1 of the order, which is as follows:-
“The present application has been filed under Section 60(5) if the IBC, 2016 read with Rules 11 of the NCLT Rules, 2016 seeking inter alia prayers as follows:
a. To direct the RP to accept the entire claim of the applicant for the Provident Fund dues of the workmen/employees to the tune of total Rs.42,48,29,752/- as submitted on 05.07.2024, and further to direct the Resolution Professional to acknowledge the priority of provident fund dues over the assets of the corporate-debtor in the present Insolvency proceedings;”
The Adjudicating Authority heard the applicant and has rejected the application by the impugned order. Adjudicating Authority came to the conclusion that assessment on basis of which the applicant is claiming to accept the entire dues were passed after issuance of the moratorium which commenced on 08.04.2024. It is the case of the appellant itself that order under 7Q, 14B were passed on 25.06.2024 and orders dated 05.07.2024 under Section 7A after initiation of CIRP process. Adjudicating Authority has relied on the judgment of this Tribunal for coming to the conclusion that the claim representing dues which was prior to CIRP commencement can alone be admitted. In paragraph-10 & 11 of the order following has been observed:-
“10.It is settled law that once the moratorium under Section 14(1) of the IBC is imposed; there can be no institution of suits or continuation of pending suits or proceedings against the corporate debtor. Therefore, assessment orders passed post-CIRP are unenforceable during the subsistence of moratorium. The Hon’ble NCLAT in EPFO v. Jay Kumar Pesumal Arlani, RP of Decent Laminates Pvt. Ltd. (CA (AT) (Ins) No. 1062 of 2024) has held that claims arising out of such post-CIRP assessments cannot be pressed in the CIRP.
11.In view of the above, only those portions of the claim representing dues which are prior to the CIRP commencement date (08.04.2024) can be admitted by the Resolution Professional. The remaining claim based on assessment orders passed after the commencement of CIRP cannot be enforced at this stage. Therefore, we pass the following order:-
ORDER
IA No.68/NCLT/AHM/2025 is rejected.”
Ld. Counsel for the appellant submitted that against the judgment of this Tribunal in EPFO v. Jay Kumar Pesumal Arlani, RP of Decent Laminates Pvt. Ltd. appeal is already pending in the Hon’ble Supreme Court.
We have heard the counsel for the appellant as well as perused the record.
It is well settled by the judgments of this Tribunal that any assessment subsequent to commencement of the CIRP cannot be ground to accept any claim in the CIRP process. We thus do not find any error in the order of Adjudicating Authority rejecting the application of the EPFO, the claim which was prior to CIRP has already been admitted. With these observations, appeal is dismissed.