A request from the Supreme Court is no polite suggestion.
The observation by a bench of justices JB Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran came after the court expressed dismay over the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) failing to hear a matter despite a specific request to do so, allowing an insolvency petition against the company to be admitted in the meantime. The court underlined that such requests are made out of institutional deference and respect for the judicial office held by members of the subordinate forum, and should not be mistaken for an absence of authority.
Making this clear, the top court has ruled that a “request” made by it to any court or tribunal is not a mere expression of expectation but must be treated as a binding direction, warning that any non-compliance will be viewed “very seriously”. “We make it very clear that if there is any request made by the Supreme Court to any court or tribunal, the same shall be treated as a direction and non-compliance of such direction shall be looked into very seriously,” the bench said in an order released on Wednesday. “The request made is out of deference to their position and to ensure that the judicial office they hold is not belittled in any manner,” it observed.
The bench was hearing an application in a dispute arising from interim orders passed by NCLAT’s principal bench in New Delhi. Worse, NCLT had meanwhile pronounced its reserved order and admitted the company into insolvency. The urgency stemmed from the fact that the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) had reserved its order on a petition under Section 7 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), which allows a financial creditor to initiate insolvency proceedings against a company.
On July 15, while disposing of appeals, the Supreme Court had made an “earnest request” to the appellate tribunal to ensure that the matter was heard on July 23. “We are quite disturbed with the manner in which NCLAT has conducted itself in the present litigation,” said the bench, seeking an explanation from the tribunal for its failure to act despite the Supreme Court’s July 15 order. However, when the matter came up before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Meenakshi Arora, appearing for the applicant, informed the bench that NCLAT had not heard the appeal even by then.
