The Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has admitted Sahara Q Shop Unique Products Range Ltd, the FMCG and retail arm of Sahara India Pariwar, under the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) and has appointed Udaykumar Bhaskar Bhat as the resolution professional of the company.
The development comes within a month of the passing away of Subrata Roy, founder of Sahara Group, at the age of 75 in Mumbai.
The Sahara Group company had entered into a service agreement with the Sigma Supply Chain Solution for handling, storage, maintenance, administration, distribution and arrangement of goods from the Sahara Q Shop at different places across the country.
Originally, the company’s operational creditor Sigma Supply Chain Solution Pvt Ltd had approached the tribunal in December 2021, after the company had defaulted on its dues of over Rs 4.75 crore.
“The order of moratorium shall have effect from the date of this order till the completion of the corporate insolvency resolution process or until this Bench approves the resolution plan,” said the division bench of judicial member Kishore Vemulapalli and a technical member Anu Jagmohan Singh in its order of December 6.
Before the tribunal’s order, Sigma Supply Chain Solution, through its counsel Nausher Kohli argued that it had addressed various emails to the company about outstanding amounts of dues and payable by the Sahara Q Shop and the company neither disputed nor denied the same.
While countering this, advocate Sandeep Bajaj, appearing for the Sahara Group company argued that the application is barred by limitation since the cause of action first arose in the year 2013 and the operational creditor had applied in the year 2021.
A total of 7,058 companies across sectors were brought into administration until September-end, according to the latest data from the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI).
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