2023 (5) TMI 724 - AT - Insolvency & Bankruptcy

Rejection of claim by Resolution Professional - Petitioners sought return of stock of their owned rice from the Corporate Debtor - whether the rice belonging to the Appellants, could be made part of liquidation estate of the Corporate Debtor? - HELD THAT:- This Appellate Tribunal observe that the claims of the Appellants need to be crystal clear and cannot be on the basis of assumptions and presumptions like Oral Agreements without any specific details, more so when the Corporate Debtor and the Suspended Director/ Corporate Debtor were allegedly involved in fraud with Bank for over Rs. 1700 crores and who were investigated by the CBI and case seems to be still on.

This Appellate Tribunal note that the Respondents made averments during hearing that the one single visit was made by the rice expert on 09.10.2020 to the premises of the Corporate Debtor and reported with partially identification of the rice belonging to the Appellant involving huge quantity of stock at the factory premises of the Corporate Debtor including 291.33 MT of Gurudeo Exports Corporation Pvt. Ltd, 493.42 MT of Shree Kalka Global, 84.00 MT of Neon International Traders and 58.94 MT TLS Mercantile P. Ltd. and total rice claimed to have been identified by the rice expert was 927.69 MT of four ‘Appellants’ altogether in one single visit by rice expert.

The Resolution Professional/Liquidator is agreed upon, that the report of the rice expert perhaps has been prepared in hurry and can not be treated as conclusive and authentic and therefore cannot be fully relied upon in order to accept the claims of the Appellants - the Appellants have not disputed that the Corporate Debtor never issued any invoice of job work to the Appellants and the Appellants also admitted that they have not recorded the payment of job work consideration in their own Audited Books of Accounts.

The Liquidator brought out the fact the CBI is already investigating the case against the Corporate Debtor involving Rs. 1,700 crores of the claims of the several banks and the stock claimed by the Appellants have not been proven belonging to them.

There are no concrete evidence or documentary proof are available to substantiate the claims of the Appellants. It may be the case that earlier the Appellants and the Corporate Debtor were involved in such types of trade practices, even may be on the basis of oral agreements and sometimes in violation of relevant laws like Companies Act, 2013, GST or TDS under Income Tax Act, etc. but to accept the claims of the Appellants at the stage of Resolution and now Liquidation proceedings, the claims have to be real, based on solid documentary evidence and in accordance with law. These cannot be allowed on the basis of indirect or circumstantial or secondary evidence/ documents.

There are no error in the impugned order - appeal dismissed.