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2023 (7) TMI 637 - NATIONAL COMPANY LAW APPELLATE TRIBUNAL , PRINCIPAL BENCH , NEW DELHIInitiation of CIRP - sufficient cause for the Adjudicating Authority to return the application of the Financial Creditor instead of adjudicating on the Company petition - HELD THAT:- Present is a case where it is an undisputed fact that the Appellant in its capacity as NBFC had sanctioned three loans to the Respondent totaling an amount of Rs.5,95,00,000/-. The three sanction letters are placed at pages 158, 161 and 164 of the Appeal Paper Book (“APB” in short). It is also an admitted fact that the loan amounts had actually been disbursed by the Appellant and had been credited to the accounts of the Corporate Debtor. The Corporate Debtor has also admitted taking the said loan amount before the Adjudicating Authority. As per the respective loan sanction letters, the tenure of each of the three loans was 36 months. The sanction letters also clearly provided that the loan was repayable on demand. The first loan was for an amount of Rs.25,00,000/- sanctioned on 20.05.2015 with an interest of 10% per annum. The second loan amount for Rs.4,70,00,000/- was sanctioned on 22.05.2017 with 12% interest per annum while the third loan was for Rs.1,00,00,000/- with 10% per annum which was sanctioned on 15.02.2018 - It is noticed that the first tranche of loan which had been disbursed on 26.05.2015 (as placed at page 167 of APB) had already become due having crossed the 36 months tenure. Section 5(8) of the IBC which is relevant for the present case defines financial debt to mean a debt along with interest which is disbursed against the consideration for the time value of money. Further, clauses (a) to (i) of Section 5(8) delineates the nature of transactions which are included in the definition of financial debt which includes money borrowed against payment of interest - In the facts of the present case, the Appellant has issued a demand notice which contained cumulative demand of all the three loan amounts. In the given factual matrix, the Adjudicating Authority is required to notice as to whether the application is complete or not and if there is a debt and the Corporate Debtor has defaulted in the payment, whether the amount so defaulted is more than the threshold limit of Rs. 1 lakh. The corpus of facts and documents are sufficiently adequate to consider a Section 7 application - there are no cogent basis for the Adjudicating Authority to have returned the application of the Financial Creditor. The appeal is allowed.
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