Lenders to the bankrupt Essar Steel on Wednesday urged the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) to speed up the resolution process as they were incurring a daily loss of Rs 17 crore on their exposure to the steel firm. Essar Steel (ESIL) owes lenders Rs 49,000 crore, senior counsel Sudipto Sarkar told the appellate tribunal. “I want a quick resolution,” Sarkar said while arguing his case in the NCLAT, adding that the resolution professional (RP) did not submit the first round of bids to the committee of creditors (CoC) and thus, the CoC never considered the eligibility or viability of the two parties. The bids were also not opened so far.
The two-member NCLAT bench, led by justice SJ Mukhopadhaya, however, said that it might take two-three weeks to pronounce an order after completion of hearing on the matter. The bench, which is hearing cross petitions by ESIL’s two bidders in the first round — ArcelorMittal and Numetal, has placed the matter for further hearing on July 16.
Sarkar also in his prayer said that it “may kindly be specifically clarified that the entire period starting April 19, 2018 to the final disposal of the present appeals be specifically excluded on computation of the corporate insolvency resolution process period.”
