The matter has now been placed before NCLAT chairperson Justice Ashok Bhushan to appoint a new bench to hear the company’s appeal.
“As for the quasi-judicial nature of the instant company appeal, as one of the respondents reflected therein happens to be the BCCI, on whose behalf I have been regularly appearing as a counsel, I recuse the matter to be heard. Let the matter be placed before the honourable chairperson for the nomination of an appropriate bench,” Sharma said.
On January 8, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) reserved its orders on the petitions filed by Glas Trust and Aditya Birla Finance seeking to be included in the committee of creditors (CoC) of Byju’s parent, along with the Indian cricket board’s application to withdraw its insolvency petition against the firm.
However, the order on January 29 was only pronounced in the matter regarding the Glas Trust case where the tribunal inducted Glas Trust and Aditya Birla Finance onto the CoC of the edtech firm, by setting aside the reconstitution of the panel carried out by the company’s interim resolution professional (IRP) on August 31.
The tribunal also called for the initiation of disciplinary proceedings by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India against the IRP.
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On Wednesday, senior advocate Arun Kathpalia, representing Ravindran, requested the bench to take the matter stating its urgency.”We are aggrieved by the process in which an order has been pronounced in respect of two applications when orders were reserved on all three. The order that has not been pronounced goes to the root and should ordinarily have been decided first,” Kathpalia said.
This is not the first matter where Sharma has recused from hearing Byju’s appeal. Last year in July, Sharma had recused from the matter related to the insolvency proceedings against Byju’s stating the same reason of having associated with the BCCI.
