Bank Of Baroda vs Suman Kumar Agarwal & Anr

IN THE MATTER OF: Bank of Baroda ...Appellant

Versus

Suman Kumar Agarwal & Anr. ...Respondents

Present:

For Appellant : Ms. Asiya Khan, Mr. Kush Sharma, Advocates

For Respondents : Mr. Rajesh Gautam, Mr. Anant Gautam and Mr. Sumit Sharma, Advocates for Respondent.

ORDER

20.03.2023: Heard learned Counsel for the parties.

2. This appeal has been filed against an order dated 29.06.2022 passed by

Adjudicating Authority (NCLT, Kolkata) on an application filed by Liquidator

against Bank of Baroda praying for declaring the sale made by Bank of Baroda

of the movable properties belong to the Corporate Debtor as null and void. The

Bank conducted the sale of the land building on 18.08.2021. It was the case of

the Liquidator that the property contained certain scraps that belonged to the

Corporate Debtor. The Adjudicating Authority has allowed and disposed of the

application and issued direction in paragraph-16 which reads as under:

...

"16. There is no record of the quantity of scrap that was there in the Chamrail property, the Managing Director of the Respondent No. 1 is directed to investigate the role of the Bank Officials who were responsible for the entire E-auction process along with handing over the physical possession to the successful bidder and is directed to quantify the amount of the material such as machineries, scrap iron etc. that were lying in the Chamrail property and deposit the evaluated sum of such materials with the Liquidator with two seeks from the date of this order."

..

3. Learned Counsel for the Appellant submits that the Bank has issued

notice of 30 days which was pasted on the property but no one came to obtain

the possession of the scrap which belonged to the Corporate Debtor and after

the sale was completed, application was filed by Liquidator.

4. Learned Counsel for the Liquidator has submitted, that as early as on

2019, he had sent intimation to the Bank to handover all the movable

properties to the Liquidator. Learned Counsel for the Liquidator, however, has

submitted that the Liquidator shall not pursue further with regard to the

direction regarding conducting of enquiry. The Liquidator is only interested in

getting the value of the scrap which was sold by the Bank.

5. After considering the submissions made by the learned Counsel for the

parties, we are of the view that the directions as contained in paragraph-16

(supra) need to be modified limiting to the direction to the Bank to assess the

value of the scraps and deposit the evaluated sum of such material with

Company Appeal (AT)(Insolvency) No. 1183 of 2022 & I.A No. 3569 of 2022 Page 2 of 3 Liquidator. We grant two months' time to the Bank from today to do the

needful. Subject to the above modification, the appeal is disposed of.

[Justice Ashok Bhushan] Chairperson

[Mr. Barun Mitra] Member (Technical) akc/nn

Company Appeal (AT)(Insolvency) No. 1183 of 2022 & I.A No. 3569 of 2022 Page 3 of 3