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Judgment
O R D E R
24.05.2022: This Appeal is directed against the order dated 24.02.2020 passed by the National Company Law Tribunal, New Delhi, Bench-II in IB-1423/ND/2018.
Counsel for the Appellant has submitted that at one point of time the arguments were heard, order was reserved on 07.02.2019 and pronouncement of the order was fixed on 28.02.2019.
Counsel for the Appellant has submitted that at the time of pronouncement of the order, he made a request to the Tribunal to allow him to file some more material besides the application bearing CA No. 299 of 2019 filed by him on 11.02.2019, the Tribunal did not pronounce the order on 28.02.2019 and allowed the Appellant to file additional affidavit and documents.
The Respondent filed reply to the CA no. 299 of 2019 dated 11.02.2019 on 08.03.2019 along with documents. An affidavit was also filed at the instance of the respondent on 08.03.2019 whereas the Appellant filed an Affidavit dated 28.03.2019 along with documents.
It is further submitted that after the Tribunal heard the arguments again and reserved the order on 03.05.2019 which was ultimately pronounced on 24.02.2020. The grievance of the Appellant is that the Tribunal did not take into consideration the application bearing CA no. 299 of 2019, reply to the application filed on 08.03.2019 with documents, affidavit dated 28.03.2019 filed along with documents and pronounced the same order which was drafted at the time of pronouncement on 28.02.2019 by scoring off the said date and putting 24.02.2020 as the date of pronouncement of order.
It is submitted that the impugned order has been passed without application of mind and without considering fresh material i.e. application CA No. 299 of 2019, its reply, affidavit dated 08.03.2019 and the affidavit dated 28.03.2019 filed along with documents.
On the other hand, counsel for the respondent has submitted that though there is no reference of the aforesaid documents in impugned order passed by the Tribunal but the Tribunal had actually applied its mind to the said material which was allowed to be brought on record after 28.02.2019 and has passed the impugned order which does not call for any interference.
We have heard Learned Counsel for the parties and perused the record with their able assistance. It may be observed at the outset that we are not touching the merits of this case and have only considered the grievance of the appellant to the extent that the Tribunal has not given any reasons in the impugned order as to how and why the documents /materials taken on record after 28.02.2019 were not found worth consideration and if these documents/materials were considered then how the same were irrelevant for the purpose of coming to the same conclusion of maintaining the order of dismissal of the application filed under Section 9 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC) by the Appellant.
Since the reasons in the impugned order in this regard are conspicuous by its absence, therefore, we are of the considered opinion that the impugned order deserves to be set aside for the purpose of remanding it back to the ‘Tribunal’ to record reasons in regard to the additional material permitted to be taken on record after 28.02.2019.
Hence, the present appeal is allowed. The impugned order is set aside. The matter is remanded back to the Tribunal for decision afresh on the basis of the material already available on record. No costs.
Parties are directed to appear before the ‘Tribunal’ on 6th July, 2022.